


Bonded

by dreamfleet, mezmerize



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AkuRoku Day 2015, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, F/F, M/M, Mages, Swords, lots of snark, murdering stuff with style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4562916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfleet/pseuds/dreamfleet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mezmerize/pseuds/mezmerize
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good job. You look disgusting.”</p>
<p>“And you look like a princess,” Roxas snaps back, raising an eyebrow at the charred bits of wyrm flesh stuck in Axel’s hair.</p>
<p>(Axel and Roxas are perfectly happy to leave the Academy without having ever bonded. Fate, and probably their professors, have other plans.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

“With him?” Axel groans, rubbing his thumb over the white jewel in his wrist. “You know, if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s really not gonna happen.”

“You’re two of the only students at your skill level who haven’t bonded,” Namine chides. Her hand is gentle on his arm. “You’re both excellent. You should embrace each others’ power while you can. Before you know it, you’ll have graduated and you may not fight with someone as powerful for quite a while.”

“Yeah, but--” Axel starts, staring down at the milky white of his jewels. He imagines them bright blue. It would be beautiful, like the ones in Riku’s wrists. “It hasn’t happened. Shouldn’t I try to fight with some of the others again? One of them might bond with me.”

Namine squeezes his arm with a sad smile. “I don’t think so, Axel. They aren’t compatible with you. I think that your best bet is to wait until after you graduate unless you choose to bond with Roxas on this mission.”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Axel shakes his head. “We tried, back in our second year. Everyone was so convinced, and then-- it's not gonna work.”

“And? That doesn’t mean that you can’t fight alongside him. You do well together.”

“You bonded when you were still in school. You don’t know the feeling of having to graduate and go out there with white jewels. Most people haven’t even seen a mage with them. They think I’m sick or something.” He wrinkles his nose.

“You don’t have to worry about what anyone thinks. You could beat anyone who decides to pick a fight with you, even without a fighter at your side.” She smiles kindly at him. “Now go. I need the two of you back in three days for your final evaluation.”

Axel steps back with a short bow. “Yes, Professor.”

“And be nice,” she reminds him.

“I’m always nice,” he grins widely at her, nodding his head again before he ducks out of her office.

Resting against the wall outside is Roxas, already in half-armor with a full pack slung over his shoulder. He pushes up when he sees Axel, cocking his head. “Are you finished? We should go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Axel sighs, “let me grab my stuff. It looks like this is gonna be an overnighter.”

Roxas grimaces. “Really? I thought this was just stupid reconnaissance they couldn’t be bothered to do themselves. Isn’t it just mapping and scouting?”

“Professor Bern said we need to be back in three days. I bet we could get it done in two. It’s not that far away.” Axel waves Roxas to follow him back out of the academic building and across the quad. “But it is a day or so hike from here, to get to the area we’re supposed to clear up.”

Roxas has to run a bit to catch up to him, grumbling something about his long legs. “You know, this isn’t going to work in the mountains,” he says when he has to jog up the stairs to catch up again. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the fast, agile one?” Axel tosses a grin back at him, “you can keep up.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the small one?” Roxas shoots back, narrowing his eyes as he hurries again. “I think you’re doing this on purpose. Beanpole.”

“Mage don’t have to be small. Case and point,” Axel rolls his eyes. He’s heard that pretty much his entire life, since he was eight and discovered his magic. People had said his sister should be the mage and he the warrior. Instead, she’s one of the most well-renowned soldiers in the kingdom and he’s close to the top mage in his class. “I’m trying to get there faster so we can leave faster and be back sooner.”

Roxas rolls his eyes and gives up trying to keep up with him. “Five extra minutes won't kill you. Can you even survive the hike until the action starts?”

“You’re the one who said we should leave,” Axel mutters, absently rubbing his jewels again. He’s had them for nearly a year now. They were put in when he started his final year in school. The skin around them finally healed a month or so ago, but he still finds them fascinating, even if they are the dull white of an unbonded mage.

Sometimes he thinks it’s wrong that the mage is the one who wears the mark of the bond. The warrior can go around as a normal person, only marked by their weapons. But mages have their stones, and the stones show their status and a part of the bonded, if they have one. Axel wishes that his were bright green like his own eyes, but mages can’t bond with themselves. It would defeat the whole point.

Roxas is silent until they reach the magic half of the campus, edged with stone buildings to house students who can’t afford apartments nearby (most) or want to get away from nearby families (many.) He waves to a few mages he knows as they pass and ignores the sympathetic looks a few of them are giving Axel (what right do they have, anyway?).

“D’you want me to wait outside?” 

“Don’t care,” Axel shrugs, “I’m mostly packed anyway. Just hadta get the details to know how to finish up. If the mages intimidate you, you can stand out here,” he smirks, eyes flickering over Roxas. Roxas glares at him.

“Who’s intimidated? I’m fine. I was being polite.”

“Uh huh,” Axel laughs, waving a hand at him. “C’mon, then.” Rolling his eyes, Roxas jogs a few steps to follow him. He’s been in here before, following Sora to Riku’s rooms, but it’s still weird to see how different it is than the soldiers’ barracks on the other half of the campus. They’re lucky if they get a room to themselves: the mages seem to have entire suites, with workstations set up in a few of the common rooms they pass. 

Roxas frowns and ignores it in favor of following Axel down another winding hallway until he stops in front of a door. 

“Pack light. It’s going to be hotter up in the ridges where we’re going.” Roxas grimaces and tries not to think about the last time they were up there, as a group, for a weeklong training camp in the middle of summer. Not nearly as far as he and Axel are going now, but it was still brutal as hell, especially on the few already-bonded mages who’d come with them. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Axel mutters, unlocking the door to his room. It’s much smaller than the ones Roxas has seen before, just one room with a small closet attached. It looks completely normal, mundane even, until someone shifts in Axel’s bed and asks, “you back?” in a groggy voice.

Axel flushes, freezing in his steps. “You’re-- still here. I, uh… I’ve been gone for hours.”

“I was tired,” the man pushes himself up with a groan and falls back against the headboard. “Oh,” he says once his eyes fall on Roxas. “Um. Hey! I think I know you.”

“Uh--” Red-faced, Roxas jerks back a little, pointing vaguely to himself before he realizes who, exactly, is shirtless and tangled neatly in Axel’s sheets. “Demyx?”

“Hey, Roxas,” Demyx says cheerfully, “right, you two are going on that mission! You’re leaving soon?”

“Yeah, as soon as I’m packed,” Axel stays still for another minute before he moves to grab his pack from a corner of the room. “You can keep staying here while I’m gone if you want.”

“Why are you--” Roxas starts to ask, but immediately thinks better of it and shakes his head, putting his hands up in front of him.

He can feel his ears burning. “You know what, nevermind. I don’t wanna know. Hurry up.”

“Uh huh,” Axel nods. He pauses by the bed to leans down and kiss Demyx on the lips. It’s just a short kiss, but he pulls back too quickly, turning away to finish packing. 

Demyx watches him, a fond smile on his lips. “Well, good luck! I hope your Last Assignment is more fun than mine was.”

Roxas kind of wants to ask him what his last assignment was. He also kind of wants to viciously yank him out of the bed.

He settles for very pointedly scowling and turning around on his heel to flop against the adjacent wall, where he doesn’t have to watch Axel with his boyfriend or something, who-- 

“Aren’t you bonded?” Roxas asks abruptly, whipping around to face Demyx again. 

Demyx has his arms behind his head, watching Axel pack with his eyes half-shut. “What, me?” He asks, blinking them open again. “Yeah, I am.”

Roxas is pretty sure he knows the mage, too, and has worked with him a couple times on field research data he’d inadvertently collected. His jewels are teal-blue, anyway, the exact shade of Demyx’s eyes--

Roxas scowls at him. “And you’re here.”

“Yeah…” Demyx says, giving him an odd look. “I am. Axel’s bed is really comfortable.” He pats it with a bright smile. “I’m going to keep it fluffed for him until he gets back. He’ll need it after sleeping on the ground.”

“Uh huh, that’s exactly why,” Axel rolls his eyes, hefting his pack over his shoulder. “Not ‘cause you’re always late to study with Zexion, so you wanna stay here so you can just get up and walk down the hall.”

Roxas grits his teeth and thinks hard of the vast mountains, of the various maps stuffed in his pack, the few slim volumes on beasts they might encounter even though it really is supposed to be clearish up there.

“Are you ready?” He asks when the strange tight anger curling into stones in his lungs has dissipated a little. “We should go. I want to get as far as we can today.”

“Yeah, I think I’m set,” Axel grabs his bedroll from near the door. “Dem, I’ll see you in a couple days.” He holds two fingers to his temple and gives him a little salute.

“You’d better. Oh--” Demyx sits up a little straighter, the blankets falling around his bare waist. “Can I borrow your books again?”

“Sure thing,” Axel smiles at him, “just actually use them this time, huh?”

“I will! I promise,” he bobs his head before dropping back into the bed. “Bye!”

“Bye,” Axel laughs, looking at him for just another moment before he turns to leave. Roxas’ hand is already on the doorknob, frown firm on his face. He’s quiet as they head for the edge of campus to start the trek through the city and out on the western roads leading up into the mountain range. The Spine, they’re called, although they have a proper name used by mapmakers and royalty and out-of-touch nobility. The Spine or The Wild is enough for the people who actually patrol to keep it safe from the untamed lands beyond them. 

Long and jagged, they stretch across the whole of the country, dotted here and there with brave towns and homesteads but otherwise, empty of cognizant life. 

It’s a long enough hike up out of the town. They stay in uncomfortable silence. Roxas focuses on the beat of his own footsteps and lets his mind wander into that blank place it goes when travelling, cataloguing root and rock and tree for danger. 

Mid-morning brings with it the sweltering heat that comes with the Spine, situated as closely as it is to the edge of a vast untamed desert. Last Roxas had heard, the few travelers who’d attempted to cross it had disappeared. It’s a vague sketched outline at the edge of his maps. Supposedly in that desert grow immortal plants and trees older than time, larger versions of the tiny cacti that dot their grassy landscape. 

By the time they’re at the edge of the mountain trail, the heat is making waves across the grass and trees, rising quickly into the massive blue sky.

Axel slows to a stop near a small stream, letting his pack fall off his shoulders. He scoops some water into his hands, drinking deeply before splashing some on his face. “How is it already this much hotter?”

Roxas shoots him a look as he drops his own pack. After a moment’s contemplation he starts to shimmy out of the pieces of his armor. “Shouldn’t you like this? Your element’s fire. You’re supposed to want to move to the desert.”

Axel shakes his head, unlacing his robe to let it fall down his arms. There are very conspicuous bruises on his chest and shoulders. Balling up the robe, he grabs a shirt from his pack and pulls it over his head. “Nah. I want somewhere temperate. I run too hot to be in the desert.”

Frowning, Roxas yanks his own long tunic off to replace it with a shorter cotton shirt with just enough padding to keep his armor from chafing him. Axel looks like the first-year soldiers do after their first couple weeks. “I thought mages didn’t do physical training.”

“What?” Axel pulls his pack back on, saying defensively, “I still train. Not all mages are soft.”

“No, you--” Roxas starts, but realization crashes into him rather like a heavy shield and he breaks off coughing, whipping around to get some water instead. His entire face is burning. He blames it on the oppressive heat. “Nevermind.”

Axel laughs at him, rocking back on his heels. “Okay. I do still spar, y’know. We could try, if you’re feeling antsy.”

The cold mountain water on his face should, in theory, help with the burning. It doesn’t. Roxas considers shoving his head into the stream for about two seconds longer than it takes him to actually do it.

Axel’s laugh is very rich and dark. Kind of like chocolate. For a second, Roxas contemplates staying in the stream. 

He’s still laughing a little when Roxas comes back up. “I’d rather get this over with,” Roxas sighs. “Tomorrow’s going to be even worse. At least, that’s what the weather mages were saying.”

“Leave it to Namine to make me go out in this. She just loves testing me,” he says, laughter petering off as he looks up at the sky. “You’d think it would be easier, having your mentor be your sister’s bonded, but it really isn’t.”

“Sure looks like she plays favorites to me,” Roxas mumbles as he wipes his face off with his shirt. The breeze is picking up and brings with it, devastatingly, more hot air. Roxas drags his armor back onto his shoulders and stretches around to lace it back up-- a pain, but something they all have to learn to do. Theoretically, their bonded could help. Roxas really doesn’t feel like asking. 

Axel is frozen in place, jaw twitching. He watches Roxas struggle for a second before he’s next to him, pushing Roxas’ hands out of the way. “At least she gives a shit about me. Where was your brother, huh?”

“What about my brother,” Roxas snaps, and starts to twist away but lets his hands drop when it becomes clear Axel is going to help him and actually knows what he’s doing. Huh. “I’m here on my own damn merit. Sora doesn’t need to babysit me.”

Axel tugs sharply on the laces, pulling them too tight, and ties them in an efficient knot. “Kairi would kill me if I got hurt out here.”

“Like I’m gonna let you get murdered,” Roxas mutters sharply. “That’s of my job, bonded or not. Even if everyone was really vague about--” he bites down on the words before he can say anything else, and finishes, smaller, “shouldn’t be worse than a couple wyrms.”

“Yeah, I think so. I heard a rumor about a clutch of dragon eggs,” Axel says pleasantly. He finishes his armor with a bow on the back and tries not to laugh. “Shall we? I could use a good fight right about now.”

“They wouldn’t send a couple of students after dragon eggs, even really arrogant ones who think they could manage,” he glances pointedly back at Axel as he rolls his shoulders, settling his armor. It’s tied on tightly. He mutters a grudging, “Thanks,” and then, feeling strange and small, “I can manage that myself, usually.”

“I don’t doubt it, but why bother when you don’t have to?” Axel smiles blandly at him before starting back up the hill. 

“We’re not supposed to rely on other people.” Roxas frowns at his back, scrambling over some brush to keep up. Already the refreshing water is like a distant memory chased away by the sun. “Even though everyone’s so obsessed with bonding--” he cuts off with a sour frown. 

“Namine’s hoping that this will get us to bond,” Axel says loudly, stomping over the rocky ground.

Roxas groans. “Why are all the professors so damn invested in this?”

“‘Cause they need a pet project,” Axel falls into step next to him, shrugging a shoulder. 

“Yeah, okay, but why do they care so much? Like-- what does it matter if I wanna go kill myself fighting wyverns alone? Which I won’t,” he kicks at a piece of sagebrush. It slaps his knee for the trouble. Roxas glares at it. “Because I’ll kill them.”

“I believe you,” Axel says quietly, looking over at him. “Namine doesn’t want me to be paired up with someone inferior or to not have a bond when I leave school. I guess you should feel flattered? Or not... “ he grimaces, “maybe we both suck.”

Roxas contemplates this for a second. “Maybe this is a ploy to get rid of us.”

“Maybe there are dragon eggs,” Axel says in a stage whisper. “Their momma is going to gut us and the academy will be rid of us for good!”

“They’re all probably laughing right now,” They’re just starting to get to the steep part of the mountain, the path turning from dirt to pure stone beneath their feet. The wind picks up again and Roxas flings out a hand to halt Axel, eyes narrowing. Axel stops immediately, pulling his magic to the ready, tingling in the jewels in his forehead and wrists. 

“D’you hear that?” Roxas murmurs, narrowing his eyes. The grass rustles and cracks in the wind, dry as bone. A little way behind them the stream hisses. Far-off in the sky, a vulture cries out low and long and echoing.

The wind dies down. A bush creaks.

Axel pulls back and takes a steadying breath. He barely exhales when there’s a shriek and two wyrms tumble out from behind a boulder, entwined and shrieking, their talons scrabbling. Axel grabs Roxas and pulls him down to the ground. The wyrms wrestle just a few yards from them, their cries grating at Axel’s ears.

“This low down--?” Roxas breathes, watching as the smaller wyrm shoves talons and claws forward, trying to scrape the other’s throat-- it writhes away with a shrill cry that sends shivers down Roxas’ spine. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna get involved with that,” Axel mutters. “D’you think they’ll notice us?”

“I think they already have,” Roxas hisses. Right on cue, the wyrms turn as one, massive gold-red eyes focused on the hillside where Axel and Roxas are crouched. One hisses low and the other slithers forward, grass rustling beneath its body. “Shit. That was fast.”

Axel pushes himself back and calling his magic to him. With a rush of power, fire darts through the air at the creatures. One lurches back, shrieking louder at the fire, but the other is too intent on creeping toward them. Their hissing is growing louder, angrier. With a quiet growl Roxas shoves himself up and yanks his sword free, motioning for Axel to stay behind him for a second.

“Piss it off again,” he murmurs as the wyrm draws up and the other scrambles up out of the brush, burned and snarling and angry.

“Is that sarcasm?” Axel drawls, pushing at the wyrms again, this time with a gust of wind from the side to knock them off balance as they charge at Roxas.

Roxas takes the chance to dart forward, using the scrub behind them as a springboard so he can thrust his sword at the soft skin under the first wyrm’s neck. It shrieks and throws itself even further to the side, blood spurting from a vein somewhere near its head. “No, you giant dick--” he whips around to slice at the other one, too. “Keep doing that! Make them too mad to focus! Go for the eyes if you can!”

Axel shoots more flames on one side and wind on the other, battering their bodies with the force of the elements. The wyrm on Roxas screams, its tail burned while the other is bowled onto its back. Axel pulls out his short sword and dodges forward, darting around Roxas to slice the other one through its gut.

“I said eyes,” Roxas grouses while he whips around to match the burnt wyrm currently attempting to bite him. He slams his sword into its teeth, snapping one in a sickening crack, and the sword goes right on through to slice at the soft bits. Blood drenches his armor and hair but Roxas drives it further down, dragging the beast away from the one Axel is fighting to get them separated until finally, what feels like hours later, it wears down enough he can shove his sword right through its throat.

Axel’s wyrm is still twitching in a bed of fire on the ground. He sits next to it, roasting it like it’s dinner. If only they didn’t taste horrible.

“Good job. You look disgusting.”

“And you look like a princess,” Roxas snaps back, raising an eyebrow at the charred bits of wyrm flesh stuck in Axel’s hair. He sways a bit on his feet, but kneels to clean his sword on a clean patch of grass. A dirty sword means a very quick death somewhere down the line when he can’t draw it and the blade is dull with old blood. “Congratulations. You’re the prettiest mage at the ball.”

“Want some wyrm?” Axel pokes it with a stick. It twitches, but can’t move beyond that. “Come over here,” he waves at Roxas, seeing the way he sways over the rocky ground.

“I’m cleaning my sword-- are you serious?” Roxas stares at the wyrm, crackling under Axel’s fire, and then at his face, pale and incredulous. “That is gross.”

“Oh, yeah,” Axel grins at him. “It’s delicious. A delicacy back where I’m from.”

Roxas snorts and turns his sword over to wipe that side, too. He needs to find another pond or something. “You are so full of shit. And you’re from the capital.”

“...maybe,” Axel smirks and holds out a hand for him. “But, seriously, come over here. You’re beat.”

“I just took out an almost-mature rock wyrm, of course I’m beat,” Roxas grouses, but swipes his blade along the grass one more time and heads over to him. “Aren’t you?”

Axel shrugs a shoulder. “It’s been too long since I fought. Adrenaline and all that. Feels kinda good.” Axel pushes himself up onto his knees, a hand landing on Roxas’ chest when he gets closer. Axel lets his eyes fall shut, feeling out the pain in Roxas’ body, gently pushing on those spots, pressing his power into them to encourage Roxas’ body to heal quicker.

Roxas sucks in a surprised little breath, relaxing despite himself as some of the pain melts away. “Since when can you heal?”

A smile flickers on his lips and he curls the healing power inside of Roxas, focusing on a cut in his shoulder that has some of the wyrm’s venom left in it. He takes a deep breath, pushing the poison when he breathes out. 

Once he’s done, Axel opens his eyes and sits back on his heels. “You pick up a thing or two at the academy. If you lose a limb, I’m your guy.”

Roxas quirks a brow at him, rolling his shoulder to settle it back into place. The burning has stopped, at least. “Why did they even make me come with you? If you can regrow or heal limbs, you don’t need me to fight off wyrms.”

“I never said regrow,” Axel wrinkles his nose. “I can just stop you from dying. Y’know when Hayner lost his finger? That sucked.”

“Or stop yourself from dying,” Roxas mutters. The roasting wyrm almost smells good, except for the underlying stench of copper-rot blood and venom (venom which is half poison, half disgusting cocktail of saliva and gods know what else.) “You’re not seriously going to eat that, are you?”

Axel grimaces. “Have you ever tried it? Tastes like dirt. Really sour dirt.”

Roxas grimaces. “I tried once. At training up here. The instructors all thought it was really funny. We-- we need leave before the blood attracts anything else. If you’re alright.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Axel stands up, stretching his arms over his head. “And now you’re not gonna die on me.”

Roxas snorts and sheathes his sword, grimacing at the few smears of blood left. “I’m not going to die from some damn wyrms. I want to know why they were so far down the mountain. Usually it’s small stuff here.”

“I dunno,” Axel murmurs, falling into step next to him again. “Maybe there were prey down here?”

Frowning, Roxas shakes his head. The stretch of grass in front of them appears empty, but those wyrms came out of nowhere. He’s on high alert with healing magic still coursing hot through his veins. “There should be plenty up there. Usually they’re not brave enough to come down this far.” 

“Maybe they are trying to get us killed,” Axel says in a deep voice, trudging up the hill. “Send the soon-to-be graduates into the Great Unknown. If they survive, they have proved themselves Worthy.”

“There’s a bunch of instructors up there laughing,” Roxas grouses, trying to make himself feel better, but there’s still unrest curling hot and sour through him. From the wyrms, he tells himself. From how low down the mountain they are. Wyrms hate open meadow like this. 

“Maybe Kairi secretly hates me,” Axel mutters, hopping up over a small ridge. “This whole thing sucks. And, what, we’re just supposed to get that herb from the top of the mountain? It’s not even that valuable.”

“Map the top,” Roxas mutters. “I’m supposed to. I don’t know if you got the same brief. This is the most pointless-- I have papers. And the damn final exhibition fight to prepare for.”

“Exactly. I have to perform in three days. And finish up two papers. And I haven’t started one of them,” he groans, letting his head drop. “Graduating is hard.”

“All the rumors said third year was supposed to be hardest, and you could just coast through the rest-- oh, are you kidding me?!” Roxas stops short again, flinging out his hand like he did before. “Fucking kobolds!”

Axel stumbles into him, grabbing onto Roxas’ shoulders to keep his footing. “Shit. Really?”

“Whole bunch of them,” Roxas mutters, pointing vaguely up ahead of them at some brush rustling and murmuring. It could be the wind, but it’s moving much more than the surrounding grass, and there are distinct clicking sounds. “This is just stupid!”

Axel mutters something under his breath and closes his eyes, moving his hands in a circular motion. A gust of wind grows around the kobolds, blowing stronger and stronger in a ring around the, turning into a mini tornado. The kobolds squawk and Axel can see them bashing into each other in the air. It’s almost funny. There are least ten that Roxas can count, falling to the ground, and they’re just starting to regain their footing when he’s on them, knocking out two at once with the flat of his still-bloody blade. 

“What are you guys doing down here!” He demands, uselessly. Two of the kobolds snarl and chitter at him as they pick themselves up from the grass and charge, claws-first. Axel’s behind him a second later, smashing the pummel of his sword down on one of their heads.

Roxas slams into one trying to claw at Axel’s knees, sending it flying across the clearing with a squeal that distracts a few of the others long enough for him to knock out another one. There’s a flash of fire and Axel’s sword chops through one of them, cauterizing both side of him.

“Why do all beasts smell foul?” Axel wrinkles his nose, whipping around again to try and nab one of them before she can get too close to Roxas.

Roxas growls and lunges forward to skewer another, cutting it off-mid yell. “To make our lives harder,” he whips around to stab one more, and from there it’s really just clean up and offing the few of them who were only stunned or knocked aside. Roxas grimaces at the end of it, wiping his hand across his forehead. “What the hell.”

Axel falls back onto the ground, grimacing at the slaughter. “This can’t be right. Gods, what else is gonna be up here?”

“Better not be a goddamn dragon,” Roxas grumbles. “I will kill Terra if it’s a dragon. I’ll sic the dragon on him.”

“I’d love to tame a dragon,” Axel says tiredly. “Ugh. It’s almost time to make camp. Let’s get a little further, then sleep.”

“If we don’t get attacked by a damn wyvern too, you mean. Maybe an ogre.”

“Sleep in shifts?” Axel sighs and pushes himself up off the ground. 

Grimacing, Roxas pushes himself up alongside him, ignoring the ache of bruises and cuts and walking. “I hoped we wouldn’t have to. Let’s get up the second ridge, at least.”

Axel nods and turns on his heel, his sword still unsheathed. His body aches already and they’re barely six hours from the academy-- if he ignores the three hours they spent fighting beasts.

It’s only, Roxas thinks, pure luck that they manage to avoid any other encounters on the way up the mountain, and actually find a flattish place to sleep with no rock cairns or ponds or suspicious trees nearby. There’s just enough brush to start a campfire, which is lucky because it’s starting to get dark and it’s more dangerous here, in the dark, with only the two of them. 

Axel’s fire magic is really handy, at least. Roxas manages something like a smile as he drags out the food he’d brought for dinner. “There’s enough for you. If you want it.”

“Sure,” Axel leans back on his pack, staring into the fire, “we can save mine for tomorrow. We made horrible time today. I doubt we’ll be done in two days.”

“They’ll extend our deadlines,” Roxas says, but he doesn’t sound sure at all, and frowns down at his few potatoes as he wraps them tight in foil to shove in the fire. “They should, anyway. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Axel murmurs and wraps his arms around his legs, chin resting on his knees. “Something bad. Unnatural.”

“And they’re sending students after it,” Roxas snaps a stick in half and sends both pieces into the flames with a hard scowl. “We need to record what we’re finding.

Axel looks up at him, then grabs his bag tugging out a worn notebook. He opens it up and stares down at the page. “Two wyrms, seven kobolds. Whatever we find tomorrow.” 

Roxas snorts at him and pokes the potatoes with the end of a stick. “Wyvern. I know it. Mark where it happened, too.” He glances up over the popping fire, watching Axel write. Axel bobs his head, writing down everything he can remember, from where they were to the time to how many each of them killed. Roxas is winning by one.

Once he’s done he snaps it shut and shoves the book back in his bag. “Well I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Food first,” Roxas reminds him. “Then you can pass out. I’ll take first watch.”

“Y’sure?” Axel asks, but then a yawn wells up. “Fuck, okay. Wake me up in a coupla hours.”

“Eat this,” Roxas insists, dragging one of the potatoes from the fire to unwrap it. It burns his hands, but he ignores that and shoves it toward Axel. “We’ll need it.”

“Yeah,” Axel takes it with a tiny quirk of a smile. “Thanks.” He’s quiet while he eats, digging into the potato with gusto. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he took the first bite. 

When he’s done he falls back on the ground with a loud groan. 

Roxas has only just finished his own food. He watches Axel with a strange look on his face, and his voice is oddly quiet when he asks, “D’you need another one?”

Axel shakes his head. “Nah, let’s save it.”

Shrugging, Roxas wraps it back up and ties a bit of twine around the leaf bundle to keep it safe. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up if any wyverns show up.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Axel mumbles. He doesn’t even bother unrolling his bed roll and just pulls his pack toward himself to use as a pillow.

On the bright side, there aren’t any wyverns.

Roxas props himself against a boulder and watches Axel’s breathing even out almost faster than he ate his dinner-- no surprise, given all the magic he’d used on top of hacking at things with his sword. Roxas can’t think of any mages who’d use a sword, unless they were truly supremely bad at magic, and clearly Axel isn’t. He’s always been among the top performers in his class, staying as high in the ranks as Roxas usually manages to. Consistently popular among the professors for his understanding of magic, and even more popular with younger students for how patient he can be with them, Axel definitely shouldn’t have any need for physical weaponry.

Not that Roxas can say any of this. It’s kind of stupid he’s kept tabs on Axel this long, even out of his periphery as he goes through his own training. He shouldn’t, even if the teachers are obsessed with pairing them off to create the Ultimate Champion Team or whatever it is going through their minds. 

Meddling, really. 

Like that would work. Even if Axel’s being civil now-- years of maturation and time to cool down, or something-- there’s still an undercurrent when he talks to Roxas, still hesitation in his voice and something cold that squirms into Roxas’ ribs and rests there like too-heavy armor. 

He hates it. He hates even more that somehow he never got the courage to demand Axel tell him why for real this time. Hates that it became the rational thing to do to drift away from him and into his own life which isn’t really much of a life at all, despite what he sends in his unanswered letters home.

Roxas likes to think they at least read them. 

But it makes this whole endeavor that much more pointless because Roxas’ post-graduation plans have been set for a while now, if not in stone, then at least in semi-firm clay. No one’s going to bond with him now. Axel’s the only mage his age who matches him in competence, and that isn’t going to happen, and he doesn’t think he could stand being bonded to some random person just for business like Demyx and Zexion apparently did.

It’s probably an outdated way of thinking, anyway. 

An outdated way of thinking that had spurred him to finally do it, that had driven him to send in the application in the first place, written shakily by candlelight where his parents wouldn’t find it. It had driven him to work harder than ever in the month-long wait to hear back, hoping maybe if he showed his competence his father would forgive him. Spurred him to accept the invitation when it finally came and deal with all his possessions being tossed out after him like so much old bread. He’d thought of finding someone who matched his desire to do something good, who wanted to see the world like he did, whose magic complemented his own skills so well no one could imagine them apart by the end of it.

Instead, he’s a mere days away from graduating, and the only person with him is a hot-and-cold mage who barely wants to be here any more than he does, stuck on a mountain with too many monsters in the middle of the damn night.

Axel shakes Roxas’ shoulder an hour after dawn, crouched down next to him. “Rise and shine,” he says loudly. With a soft groan, Roxas reaches up to swat at him, frowning heavily with his eyes still closed.

“No training yet,” he mumbles, and scrunches his eyes against the growing dawn.

“Your fault you let me sleep too long,” Axel laughs and shoves a tin of cooked sausages near his nose. “Get up.”

“Ugh,” Roxas says eloquently, and blinks open bleary eyes only to come face to face with… sausages. “...oh. You cooked.”

“Yep,” Axel sits back on his heels to grab his own plate. “Gave you a little more sleep too. Think you’re up for whatever today’s gonna throw at us?”

“Depends on what that is,” Roxas mumbles as he shoves himself up, stretching wide after a night on the hard ground. Even after years in school, it makes him sore. “You didn’t have to let me sleep in.”

“You let me,” he shrugs. “I don’t wanna die ‘cause you’re tired.”

Roxas just snorts at him and settles back to eat his breakfast, keeping alert for any strange sounds on the wind picking up quickly around them. The quiet between them is marginally less uncomfortable as they finish up and do what small things they can to break camp. 

“We can clean after dinner,” Roxas shrugs as he takes both their tins and stows them away together, nested together. “Better make it to the pass today.”

“I hope so,” Axel hefts his pack onto his shoulder. “If we don’t, well… I hope Kairi doesn’t send attack cats after us.”

“She wouldn’t,” Roxas says, shooting him a wide-eyed look. He doesn’t sound convinced of his own words at all. “Are-- nevermind.”

“What?” Axel asks offhandedly, setting off up the mountain.

Roxas shakes his head. “Nothing. Just-- it’s not important. We should be focusing.”

“No, ask me,” Axel turns around, holding onto the straps of his pack. Roxas frowns, staring at him for a second.

“I-- why are you-- you’re being--” Roxas stumbles over his words until they’re choked up on his tongue and he has to stop to untangle them, scowling fiercely at the ground. “I just wondered if you guys were close.”

Axel looks bemused, but answers, “yeah, we’re pretty close. I guess I’m kinda closer with Namine now, though.”

Roxas’ scowl deepens. “Why are you being so…”

Axel watches him, slowing down a little. “Roxas, you don’t hafta be so jumpy. Just say what you wanna say.”

Roxas gives him a wary look. “Last I checked, you weren’t that happy to be around me.”

Axel’s quiet for a moment, then he shakes his head. “That was years ago. I don’t hold grudges for that long.”

“What?” Roxas stops dead as a stick goes snap under his boots. “Don’t give me that! You’re an asshole to me every time we’re paired together in class! You’re barely civil to me at most and you haven’t had a conversation as long as this with me in-- years!”

Axel turns back around and climbs over a few large rocks before he says. “Maybe I held it a little long.”

“A little too long--!” Roxas growls and bolts after him, grabbing his wrist to stop him going any farther. “What the hell!”

Axel yanks his arm away, but Roxas’ fingers are tight. “Let go of me.”

“No,” Roxas lifts his chin in that familiar stubborn way, eyes flashing. “This is all you.”

Axel grits his teeth, twisting around on Roxas to push him away. “I’m trying to be nice to you! Fuck off.”

Roxas catches himself on a boulder before he stumbles over and his whole face is fire as he picks himself back up. “Don’t try to be nice to me with no explanation when you’ve been an ass since second year!”

Axel turns back around and hikes as quickly as he can over the rocks and boulders. His movements are stilted, sweat already shining on his face.

“What the hell!” Roxas shouts after him and scrambles up with armor clanking over boulder and logs. Axel’s strides are long and pointed and designed to keep Roxas as far away as possible, it seems. Like it has been for years. Like it has been since Axel suddenly, for no reason decided little backwater Roxas who he’d been friends with for a year and a half wasn’t worth talking to anymore. Since he turned up his nose like Roxas didn’t exist. Whispers had chased Roxas for months after that, biting like insects until he’d shut down and snapped back, and only then had they stopped. 

Axel’s trying his hardest to run away and ignore it again.

Old anger rears up and snaps at him like a spitting wyrm. Roxas coils all his strength and sprints after Axel in a burst, shoving off a fallen log to grab for him. As soon as his fingers find purchase in cloth he yanks without thinking, trying to get Axel back down to his level. Axel reels, caught off balance. He tries to grab for another rock, but ends up skidding down the side of the mountain. He grasps for Roxas’ shirt and manages to pulls him down with him. Dirt smears his pale face. Roxas grabs for another handful of it to mash against his cheek rough-palmed so he lets go, struggling to get away and knee Axel at the same time. Axel grabs him around the waist and hurls him to the side. He doesn’t go very far, but it’s enough that Axel can scramble to get his feet under him.

What Roxas learned quickest in those odd months on his own, the backcountry still twanging oddly in his voice and his temper flying everywhere, was: he’s small, and he can use it. 

Axel looms over him. Roxas stays low with teeth gritted and waits until Axel’s feet are properly under him to try and swipe them out again, throwing all his weight below Axel’s center of balance.

Axel inhales sharply, rolling to avoid cracking a bone when he hits the ground. “Fuck,” he gasps, scrambling to turn back around. He hurls himself at Roxas, his equipment clanking in his pack.

“At least you’re not running away now!” Roxas ducks underneath him but Axel’s leg catches him and he goes crashing into the long grass with metal clattering angry around him. Axel kicks up, trying to fling Roxas off of him again. When that doesn’t work, he knees Roxas in the gut, bone connecting with metal. His armor slams hard into his solar plexus and for a second all Roxas can see is stars and Axel’s face dirt-streaked and livid above him. His eyes are absurdly green. 

“Fuck you,” Roxas spits breathlessly. “Get the hell off.”

Instead, Axel pulls back his fist and punches him. His fist slams into Roxas’ shoulder, protected only by light leather armor in the heat, and the blow finds the straps instead of solid leather and knocks him back into the ground with a hard thud.

Axel pushes himself off of Roxas, nostrils flaring. He takes a few steps back, flexing his hand at his side. Roxas’ breath is lost somewhere in his stomach but he’s a shitty soldier if he can’t take a few punches. Levering himself up with his lungs still remembering to work isn’t easy, but at least he’s on his feet and glaring. 

Axel doesn’t move. He meets Roxas’ eyes, expression tight. Roxas’ chest is heaving as he tries to get his breath back and grass and dirt is smeared across his face and tangled into his golden hair. He looks like a wild thing, cornered and squared off like Axel’s going to pounce at any second.

“Are you done?” Axel asks, blood trickling off his split knuckles. Roxas grits his teeth.

“Get the hell off your high goddamn horse. Stop faking being nice to me and let’s get this damn thing over with.”

Axel’s jaw twitched, but he nods and turns around, hiking back up to where they were before. One of his robes and a few cooking implements are scattered around the rocks. Roxas only grabs a piece of his armor and a stray pan, still trying to properly catch his breath as the heat of the day increases steadfastly around them.

Axel doesn’t get very far, hardly walking straight with anger still seething in him, when he’s suddenly slammed into the ground. His head cracks against the ground. A great wolf bears down over him, paws weighing on his shoulders. A high yelp escapes him and he tries to struggle away from it, but the wolf’s jaws are right next to his face and all he can do is cover his head with his arms.

“Axel!” Roxas only barely has time to draw his sword, cursing fluidly as he practically lobs it toward the snarling creature. Spittle flecks its gaping mouth as it tries to chomp down on arm or head or something close before Roxas growls and distracts it with a neat swipe to the wolf’s side.

Snarling in pain, the wolf jerks back away from Axel, barely registers Roxas, and then redoubles its efforts to try and get to Axel’s head with slobbering great snaps. Maybe the soldiers train with fighting dogs but he knows the mages get no such thing. Axel’s face is twisted and bone-white as he tries to struggle away.

Panicking and breathless, Roxas does the only thing he can think of and lobs the heavy pan at the creature, striking it in the shoulder. “Over here, asshole!”

It looks up with a snarl just in time to catch Roxas trying to impale the damn thing, but it stays braced on Axel’s side with claws digging in. It snarls at Roxas as he swipes again, opening a cut in its side. The wolf sways and leaps forward and Roxas stumbles back, smearing blood from his sword onto his arms as he does. “Come on, come on,” he mutters, trying to goad the thing toward him.

With a wild growl, the wolf seizes on Axel, using him as leverage to push off and bound forward after Roxas taunting and blood-covered. 

Axel tumbles down the side of the mountain until he can catch himself on some brush. It takes him a minute to regain his balance, dizzy from the fall and aching from the weight of the wolf. But it’s now attacking Roxas. His gut clenches and he scrambles up, the rocks cutting his hands. Roxas. He needs to get to Roxas.

He shouts Roxas’ name and barrels forward, his sword pouring fire off of its length. It’s a completely unschooled chop at the wolf but he hacks into its side, the fire rippling through its coat. The wolf howls, lurching forward toward Roxas to get away from the burning pain in its ribs. Roxas doesn’t even hesitate to block swiping claws and twist his sword up and away, knocking the wolf off-balance just enough he can shove a smaller blade yanked in a panic from his boot into its throat.

The wolf thrashing against his grip, but its struggle fades after a few moments, its body going limp.

Axel takes a step back, trying to catch up with his breath. “Gods. That was--” He turns wide eyes up to Roxas. “Thanks.” 

Roxas is panting and covered with even more blood than before. Some mats his hair to his cheek, deep red drying quickly into brown. He swipes the back of his hand over his eyes, still holding his smaller sword like it’s nothing. “Something is definitely wrong with this place.”

“Yeah,” Axel nods, stepping around the wolf to touch Roxas’ chest again. He closes his eyes, searching him for any injuries. There are scratches cover his arms and his face, bruises from where Axel punched him and where his armor pinched his skin. Axel presses his power into each one of them, knitting them up before they can get infected. It’s fast enough that he shouldn’t have any scars. Axel focuses on the ones on his cheek first, just to be sure.

When he opens his eyes a few minutes later, it looks like they were even there. Axel smiles faintly, looking him over with his own bloodied hand still on Roxas. 

A few seconds later, Roxas remembers to let his breath out, slow and steady, eyes fixed on Axel with confusion and something else warring plain across his face. He’s never been very good at hiding anything. “Thanks,” he murmurs, reluctant.

Axel nods, his fingers trailing down Roxas’ chest before he remembers to pull them away. “You’ll live.” Roxas swallows a little.

“Are you hurt? Shouldn’t you be taking care of yourself?”

“Just a few bruises,” he mutters and takes a few trudging steps away from him. Roxas follows stubbornly, glancing over the wolf one more time as he passes to make sure it’s really dead. 

The pan is sitting useless a few feet from his head. Scowling, Roxas trudges to go pick it up. “It had its teeth by your face and its claws in you.” he finally says, low. “Don’t be a prideful asshole.”

Axel shrugs. There are scratches on his arms, but few of them broke the skin. “You did more damage than the wolf,” he mutters.

Roxas feels guilty for half a second. Then he snaps “Good,” and drops to one knee to clean his sword off on the rough grass. Axel watches him for a while before he unsteadily drops down onto a rock. His eyes fall shut and the jewels on his forehead and wrists flash. Roxas can see the edges of magic fluttering just under his skin, green then blue then green again, like a halo around him until it sinks into him. The bruises are lightening before his eyes.

“Impressive,” he mumbles without really realizing it.

Axel’s stance stiffens, fingers clenching, but he doesn’t open his eyes. The cuts on his knuckles heal next. “Every mage can do this,” he murmurs.

“Bullshit,” Roxas snorts. “Pence can’t heal at all.”

One eye cracks open and the faintest flicker of a smile is on Axel’s lips. “Pence has always sucked at healing.”

“Cause he’s too distracted by Olette to study,” mutters Roxas. “Besides. Not all the mages focus it to that degree. So why?”

Axel slumps forward, elbows resting on his knees. “If you wanna bond, you have to know how to heal your partner.”

“You want to bond,” Roxas asks quietly. He frowns down at the reddened edges of his sword.

“I did,” Axel clarifies. “D’you?”

Roxas blinks at him, mouth dropping open very slightly. Then his ears flare scarlet and he whirls around to kneel beside the body of the wolf still leaking blood. He pokes a bit at the ribs, turning it over. “Something…” He can see every one of the animal’s ribs. “Something is off. A wolf shouldn’t be this skinny at this time of year.”

Axel crouches down next to him, grimacing at the stench of the dead wolf. “No. Wolves rarely attack people too. Maybe all the beasts we’ve been seeing took all his food?”

Frowning, Roxas prods at it a few more times, turning the head over in his hands. The wolf’s ears are ragged, he realizes now, and the foam flecking its mouth is pink with blood. He grimaces. “That’d... explain why they’re further down the mountain than usual.” The wolf’s mouth lolls open, releasing another burst of foul air. Roxas reels back. “I need a stream.” 

“Me too,” Axel mumbles, finally feeling the bruises blooming on his torso, ones he hadn’t bothered healing. “He’s heavy for such a skinny guy.”

Roxas groans as he shoves himself to his feet. “C’mon. Maybe at least he’ll distract some other stuff that wants to kill us. We did all the hard work.”

“You did,” Axel says softly.

Roxas sighs and holds out a hand to help yank him to his feet. Axel takes it, using far more support than he’d like to haul himself up. He sways for a moment, knowing he shouldn’t have exerted as much power to heal Roxas’ cuts as he did. Roxas can stand to have some scars.

Roxas frowns at him, keeping his hand near Axel’s elbow to steady him. “Are you alright?”

Axel nods, but he doesn’t open his eyes for a minute. He sucks in a deep breath and lets go of Roxas’ arm. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“That doesn’t mean you are fine,” Roxas stays right where he is. “If you need to rest, say it.”

Axel pushes on up the mountain, ignoring the fatigue in his limbs. “Nah. This is already taking way too long. Let’s keep going til noon.”

Roxas really can’t argue with the logic of that, but he does make sure to stay close behind Axel so if he does happen to fall over, at least Roxas will be there to cushion the blow and he won’t be accused of killing a mage he isn’t even bonded to. No one would take him then. Even if Axel deserves it a little. “Just be careful.”

“Yeah,” Axel mutters, forcing himself to keep walking up the side of the mountain.

By the time the sun has started to sink down in the sky again, it’s about ten degrees hotter than it was before. Roxas spends a few minutes grumbling about heat and being vaguely grateful that they’re at least at a high enough altitude that the swarming bugs have all but disappeared. He pushes aside sagebrush with the flat of his sword, letting the rough leaves flake off the remainders of dried blood. No streams yet, but they both smell like wolf blood and death, and so far, nothing else wants to bother them. Probably because they both smell awful. 

Axel definitely isn’t in peak shape, and Roxas forces them to stop a little while later to eat something, and doesn’t let him get up after he’s finished. 

“I don’t care if you have magic,” he’s saying, glaring. “I know basic first-aid and I know you’re not okay, so take your damn shirt off.”

“I’m just tired,” Axel retorts, biting off a piece of the jerky he’d brought. “I’m not used to getting little sleep, fighting, and healing all in one day.”

“You also got body-checked by a wolf,” Roxas points out. “And I know you didn’t heal everything.”

“Well-- I’ll be able to heal myself more once I rest a little,” Axel continues to eat, ignoring the force of Roxas’ attention on him.

Roxas rolls his eyes. “Would you just let me look at it?”

Axel holds out for another minute, then gives in when his side twinges from trying to get something out of his pack. “Fine.”

He strips off his shirt, tossing it on top of his pack. Bruises cover most of his chest and over the left side of his ribs.

“They’re only bruises. Nothing’s broken.”

Roxas’ brows shoot up. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbles, shuffling closer on his knees. The bruises are purple-blue and a little faded, spreading up his ribcage and following the pattern of bone beneath. Roxas winces and spreads his palm over it, pressing very lightly. Axel sucks in a breath, pain shooting down his side. He stares up at the sky to ignore as much of it as he can.

Roxas draws his back immediately. “Nothing’s broken my ass. If you can, you should heal it. I have a salve that’ll help a little, too.”

“I can’t use much more magic,” Axel mutters, still refusing to look at him. Roxas glares.

“If you pass out, this is a good place to do it. That’s why we’re both here.”

“I-- guess,” Axel sighs in defeat and shifts to settle more comfortably. He sucks in as deep of a breath as he can manage and starts to slowly channel his power into the broken rib. He can feel it more acutely through his magic, the power wrapping around the bone, pressing it back into place, the magic knitting it together. A soft sound escapes his lips, his consciousness starting to fade in and out. Roxas catches him quickly as he lists to one side, steadying him upright with a concerned sound.

“Okay?”

Axel nods, letting himself drift into Roxas’ strong grip. “Yeah. Doesn’t hurt.”

He lowers Axel to the ground, easing his pack strangely gentle under his head. “You sleep. I’m putting that salve on.”

“Thanks,” Axel smiles vaguely, curling in on himself as sleep takes him. He’s out of it enough that he doesn’t notice when Roxas jars him a couple times applying the salve, and then tapes down bandage patches over them so there’s at least a little extra padding. The sharp herb scent is soothing. They practically live in this stuff and it’s lulled him to sleep on more than one night. Whatever combination of herbs it is-- Roxas knows mint, willowbark, comfrey, enough to make a version if he has to-- cools overheated skin and sharpens up the senses, like the air right before the snow that coats his home village for months in the winter.

He rests back against Axel’s pack, full of harder food, and watches the slow rise and fall of his chest, and the drying grass waving all around them, and the distant dark peak of the Knuckle, which isn’t even a very high mountain, and shouldn’t have this many wyrms on it.

It doesn’t make sense.

The grass rustles and washes in the wind, starting to pick up and snatch at the sleeves of his tunic. A few bits of hair escape Axel’s ponytail to flip across his face. Frowning, Roxas drags his tunic down a little further to escape the chill and tries not to think about the cold dismissal in Axel’s face earlier in the day.

He doesn’t know why he gets so worked up over him, anymore.

“Hey. Wake up.”

Axel groans, scrunching up his face. But Roxas’ voice rouses him enough that he feels the chill of the air. Something wet falls on his nose. His eyes flicker open to stare up at the sky, completely different than when he fell asleep.

“How long have I been out?”

“About two hours,” Roxas reaches a hand under his arm on the other side of his injured ribs. “It’s snowing.”

Axel uses him to heft himself up. “How--?” His mouth falls slightly open as he watches the clouds hanging heavy above them.

Roxas’ face is just dark. “No idea. It started to get cold, and then the wind picked up. I thought it was raining. It’s not.” His breath puffs in front of him with the words, the perfect proof to his point. “We’re not dressed for this.”

Axel tugs his robes out of his bag, shoving one of them into Roxas’ hands. “Let’s find cover.”

He pulls on his shirt and robes, glad to feel that his ribs only twinge and no longer sear with pain when he moves. 

“Are you better?” Roxas asks when he’s wrestled his way into the robe and belted it tight around his waist, over his armor. 

“Yeah,” Axel lets out a breath, carefully working his pack onto his back. “Much.”

The snow is starting to fall faster and thicker, sticking to the bare branches of tiny trees left at this altitude. The thin air is needles in Roxas’ lungs. “What’s happening?”

“Dunno. It’s almost summer,” Axel trots back a few steps. “There have to be some caves in this mountain. Or thick trees. We need to get under something.”

Roxas glances at him, then up at the sky. “It looks… like it’s gonna get pretty bad. It used to look like this back home. In the middle of winter. When it’s supposed to.” He grimaces and lets his pack hang off one shoulder so he can glance quickly over his worn old map, inked onto thin vellum so it doesn’t run in exactly this kind of weather. It takes him only seconds to spot them. “There are caves further up the mountain, after the treeline ends. Northeast.”

“Alright. C’mon,” Axel turns around and starts hiking up the mountain far faster than he could have before. Roxas follows him as the wind starts to pick up, whipping at the thick fabric of the robes. It had seemed stupid for Axel to take the heavy things but Roxas is glad he did or this would be hell.

They trek for what feels like hours until their leather shoes are soaked and heavy with freezing snow. Roxas is stiff and silent, trying to follow the map in his mind to the line of heavy limestone ridges near the top of the mountain, worn into caves and holes and caverns by time. The snow has picked up and drives around them into a frenzy of white. It piles on everything, flattening and rounding jagged rocks, filling the tracks they leave behind them. 

Roxas has no idea where they are. He can barely see the shape of Axel trudging ahead of him, bent down into the wind flinging crystal-sharp snow into their faces. His toes are numb, or hot, he isn’t actually sure, and the cave was supposed to be here by now but all he can see is white and cold and snow. 

When Axel can’t remember the last time they spoke, he pauses to say something to Roxas, only to stop in his tracks. He waits until Roxas is closer and he grabs him around the shoulders, bundling him against his chest. He murmurs a word of warming, a spell that takes very little energy for him, and lets it run through the pair of them. Roxas is almost past the point of shivering, minute tremors running through his body that increase the longer Axel’s spell works through them. He tries to say something, but it’s lost in the howl of the wind and the shake of his own breath, fragile and sharp in his throat.

Nearby, a spire of snow rises from the ground. Roxas stares vacantly at it around Axel’s shoulder, huddling even closer as the wind changes direction. It looks like a finger, pointing up as if scolding the overburdened clouds.

Roxas jumps, realization rushing hotter than magic. “Caves!”

Axel tries to follow his gaze, but just shakes his head, grabbing Roxas’ hand. “Let’s go there then.”

Roxas stumbles forward, spurred on in a straight line up to the bluff they’ve probably been skirting for the better part of an hour, blinded by driving snow. They pass the Thumb and Roxas knows from there it’s a straight line into a cave, even if he can’t actually see it. He leads Axel blindly, gripping his hand too tight and stumbling through the snow until the wall of white abruptly collapses in front of him, sending them both tripping and tumbling forward.

Axel bursts out in a laugh, falling against Roxas’ back. “We did it,” he gasps, wrapping his arms around Roxas without thinking. Roxas curls into him immediately, shivering again. The wind sounds louder in here, echoing off the stone walls. They’re lying in the pile of it that drifted in and fell in with them, but Roxas doesn’t care, only pushes his face into Axel’s shoulder and clings there, letting the feeling come rushing back into his fingers and toes. Axel holds him tightly, letting more warmth flow through them. His fingers pet down Roxas’ back, trying to calm his shivers. 

“I wanna know,” Roxas mumbles, trying to stop the shaking in his voice, “I wanna know why there’s a damn blizzard in the middle of summer.”

“I have no idea,” Axel murmurs, pulling Roxas up. “C’mon, let’s get away from the snow.”

Roxas tries to go with him, but he’s unsteady on his own feet. He feels kind of like a baby horse, clinging to Axel while his legs forget how to hold up his own weight. “There should be dry wood at the back,” 

“Y’think?” Axel hooks his arms around Roxas and hefts him up into his arms. “Don’t complain,” he says before Roxas can comment. “If you die on me, we’re both screwed.”

Roxas makes a tiny sound of protest and almost starts to say something, but mumbles instead, “this is like a base camp, kind of. High up the mountain. If we can, we’ll restock the wood when we leave.” Axel’s arms are surprisingly solid around him.

“Oh. That’s really smart. You just remembered where it was?” Axel glances down at him, walking slower than he’d like, but at least Roxas is getting warmer in his arms.

Shaking his head, Roxas curls one arm around Axel’s shoulders to keep himself up. “Didn’t know where we were ‘til I saw the Thumb in the snow. All the other landmarks are whited out.”

Axel nods, murmuring a word under his breath that spreads fire from his feet forward along the ground in front of them. The cave is suddenly lit up and he can see the evidence of groups of soldiers bunking out here. There are inappropriate drawings on the walls, rusted weapons and old bedding on the ground.

“Glad you found it,” Axel murmurs.

Roxas shivers again and presses closer. Outside, the wind is picking up, blasting the cave entrance with snow and blowing more up against the entrance to the cave. It howls louder than the wind Roxas remembers on the plain. The snow is drier and colder. 

Like Axel had been. Roxas goes stiff. “You can put me down.”

“Not gonna fall over?” Axel says with a quirk of a smile.

“That’s what cave walls are for,” Roxas retorts, almost grinning back before he remembers himself. “You’re warmer.”

“It’s part of the deal,” Axel hefts Roxas in his arms. “You were gonna die of hypothermia.”

“I wasn’t gonna die,” Roxas snorts. “That’s an exaggeration.”

“Maybe a little,” Axel placates, “but still. I don’t want to have to drag you along, sneezing and shivering.”

Roxas snorts at him again. “Like I’d get sick from that.”

“Uh huh,” Axel rolls his eyes, but they’re already far from the snow and there’s a pile of wood against the side of the cave. He loosens his grip, letting Roxas drop to the ground. Roxas has to brace his arms on Axel to hold himself up until he can stand (somewhat wobbly) on his own two feet. “We need tea.”

“I have a pan in my bag,” Axel lets it drop off his back. “Sit.”

“I’ll be fine,” Roxas insists as he wavers upright. “The pan’s with my stuff. I threw it at the wolf. You make the fire. I’ll make us food and then we can figure out what the hell is going on. At least if we could barely make this, maybe all the monsters out there can’t.”

“Hopefully,” Axel sighs and goes to collect some of the firewood. “Think we can wait this out?”

“How long do freak summer blizzards usually last?” Roxas asks dryly. It’s hard to kneel by their packs with unsteady legs and shaking fingers, and the fabric is frozen shut. Frowning, Roxas pries it open with stubborn fingers. “Everything’s frozen.”

Axel sets down the wood only to kneel next to Roxas, waving his hands away. “I can fix it.” He warms up the fabric of the bag, water melting off of the pack. Roxas nods at him in thanks and drags it closer. He pulls the pan off the top, then bends to dig through, grimacing at the sopping food and their bedrolls.

“Save your magic, but at least dry the blankets. We should ration our food.”

“Yeah...” Axel pulls out the blankets, “ugh. I hate snow. If I’d known this would happen, I would have told Namine to stuff it.”

“Surprised you didn’t anyway,” Roxas mumbles over the soggy remains of the bread. 

“It’s tradition,” Axel murmurs, tossing a dried blanket over Roxas’ shoulders. Roxas tugs it down with a grateful sound.

“What is? Coming up here? Or telling Namine to stuff it?”

“Both,” a smile flickers on his lips. “Kairi and Namine came up here right before their graduation on a similar mission.”

“They did? Kairi didn’t mention that.” Roxas blinks, watching him out of the corner of his eye. “She yelled at me. Then got Terra to yell until I agreed.”

“I don’t blame you. Her determination is… legendary,” Axel waves his hand over the pile of wood and a small fire sparks into life. He coaxes them into life, kneeling down next to the fire. “I almost made it to graduation without punching you.”

Roxas’ shoulders go tight. “What, that was some kind of noble goal for you?”

“Not noble. But I was pretty proud,” Axel doesn’t look at him, his voice even.

“Sorry I ruined it,” Roxas snaps and yanks the blanket tighter around himself, drawing both knees up to his chest. “Guess you’ll have to find a different one. Maybe pick someone you don’t hate next time.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a challenge,” Axel pokes the fire with another log. “But maybe it’s good. Closure and that shit.”

Roxas’ eyes finally snap to him, wide with disbelief. “Closure? What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“You’re the one dredging up the past,” Axel glances at him, “I was happy ignoring it. For the greater good.”

“Who the hell gave you the right to decide what’s for the greater good?! You didn’t even ask me!”

“So you’d rather fight? Brawl and bruise my ribs?” Axel waves a little more fire at the logs, flames bursting up high.

Roxas’ anger flares up with the flames. “I’d rather you explain yourself! You’re the one avoiding it.”

“Then ask me. What do you want to know?” Axel sits back, arms hooking around his knees. Narrowing his eyes, Roxas sits up a little straighter to stare at him across the flickering fire. Shadows dance behind him, jagged-edged from the shape of his hair.

“Really?”

“Why not?” Axel shrugs. “We never have to see each other again after this. Get it all out there.”

Axel’s reasoning prickles at him, but Roxas decides to ignore that in favor of seizing maybe his one chance to get answers without having to punch Axel again (which, at this point, he’d be sort of alright with.)

He opens his mouth to start, but nothing comes out. His mouth snaps shut again in a hard click of teeth.

Now that he can ask, Roxas’ mind is blank.

“You abandoned me,” he finally says, careful. It’s not a question by any stretch of the imagination. “All of a sudden.”

“You could say that,” Axel bobs his head. Roxas really wants to punch him in his nonchalant face and it’s through a great deal of effort that he only snaps another stick in half and slams it into the fire with the other crackling logs. The wind howls and rips at the snow-covered entrance.

“I am saying that,” he finally grits out, trying to keep his voice even. “So why?”

Axel stares into the fire, silent for a long moment. “Why… there’s a short answer and a long answer to that.”

“If you give me the short one I’m punching you again.”

“I’m the one who punched you,” Axel reminds him with a grin. 

Roxas throws another stick into the fire, watching sparks pop up into the air only to fizzle out again. “I’ll punch you for the first time,” he amends after a moment. “Get on it with it.”

Axel sighs heavily, dropping his head. “So impatient. It’s like we’re not trapped in a blizzard.”

“You’ve owed me an explanation for about three years,” Roxas snaps. “Stop avoiding it. If it’s a shitty reason, fine. That’s better than--”

“It’s a shitty reason,” Axel confirms with a nod. “I dunno. I was pissed at you. When you started fucking Isa… it didn’t feel great. So I left you to it.”

“It didn’t feel great,” Roxas repeats faintly. “What… what the hell is that supposed to mean?! You didn’t even say anything! You just--!”

“Yeah, I know,” Axel rests his chin on his knees, watching Roxas across the flames. “It was a shitty reason, but… I dunno. I was 19 and stupid.”

Roxas can only stay silent in the wake of that, teeth gritted around the thousand half-formed words on his tongue. Three years of pretending their friendship never happened. Three years of Roxas alternately thinking about him and wishing he wasn’t thinking about him, of confusion and trying again to be friends and no explanations at all and his reason is it bugged me that you slept with my other best friend a few times. After he’d watched over Roxas for a year, teased him late at night and slung an arm over his shoulder to steer him away from the training grounds so he couldn’t go work himself to the bone.

“You’re 22,” he finally snaps, voice cracking over the words, “and still stupid. And we’re stuck in a freak blizzard in the middle of summer on a mountain with an idiot mage because some asshole professors think it’s unacceptable that we’re not bonded yet!”

“Wishful thinking,” Axel murmurs.

“Fuck you,” Roxas spits back. He sounds more defeated than angry. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me up when the damn blizzard is over.”

Axel nods, hugging his knees closer to his chest. He doesn’t say anything in reply, staying still until Roxas has settled down in his robe and blanket. He feels cold, but it’s not from the blizzard. That chill is easy to ward off with magic. He’s shut Roxas out for so long, first angry and hurt, then when he grew weary of that he ignored Roxas completely. It seemed easier than confronting that Isa had been chosen over him again. For most of his life it was that way. Isa was the smart one, the one who could control his magic and excelled in class. Axel always lagged behind, having fun instead of working. The irony is that when he blocked Roxas and Isa out of his life, his studies improved, his magic became more controlled (after a while; at first it was dangerous and burst whenever someone did anything to flare his temper).

He tiptoes around Roxas to get supplies from his pack, careful not to wake him. Even after all this time, Roxas brings out that part of him that he shoved away, that he kept locked tight inside of him. It burns very like when his flames run out of control and scorch him. How it lasted through years of trying to hate Roxas, Axel doesn’t know. He thinks he did hate Roxas at one point, too bitter and hurt not to. The passion he had before, the want, the desire for his oblivious, beautiful, talented friend, morphed into something perverse where he actively tried to hurt Roxas. It was neither healthy nor logical, he realized later, spending late nights with Kairi and Namine, seeing their relationship bloom from friendship into love and beyond.

Axel takes his blanket out of his pack and drapes it over Roxas, pressing heat into the fabric. He smiles softly before moving to sit back on the other side of the fire.

Roxas wakes up to heat and howling snow. 

It takes him a few sluggish moments to process both of these things while he struggles to pull his eyes open. Wrapped around his shoulders is a blanket, too warm to be natural.

Axel, his mind supplies, and then he can finally make out the shape of Axel across the dim little cave, curled up by the fire under his robes. He has no blanket. 

Roxas has no idea what to do with that. Pulling himself up, he blinks around their tiny smoky space for a moment. The only light filters in through snow besides the faint red glow of coals in the banked fire. His head feels foggy. Distantly, Roxas recalls survival class and his father’s ancient warnings about people dying in their sleep, locked in snowbound caves. He stumbles toward the howling wind with blanket dragging, grabbing his sword on the way over. Muffled by a wall of snow, the wind sounds far away, like it’s whistling across plains instead of just outside.

Roxas stares at the wall for a moment, unseeing, trying to get his brain together. Shoving his sword only gets it stuck. Frowning, Roxas shoves a little harder, putting all his weight behind the thrust and twisting it just so.

The wall cracks. The wind shrieks and whirls a thousand times louder, slamming ice crystals into Roxas’ nose. He stumbles back, yanking his sword free in a shower of white. A few steps further and he runs into something hot and solid, hands gripping his arms. “Is that the storm?” Axel asks in a raspy voice, his eyes wide as he stares at the gale outside.

Roxas nods mutely. His head brushes Axel’s chest as he moves. The man is absurdly warm which must come with being a fire mage. It’s hard to summon up the willpower to move away from him with the blizzard raging outside. Axel stays for a moment, grips tight, before he moves closer to the wall of snow. His fingers stray over Roxas’ arm before they fall. The wind whips at his hair, tangling it behind him.

“Had to open up a hole,” Roxas explains quietly as he moves closer. His voice is lost under the wind. “Why’d you give me your blanket?”

Axel glances down at him, red hair streaking across his face. His eyes flick to the blanket, then he shrugs. “A soldier’s useless with frostbite.”

“Not according to Terra,” Roxas mutters, thinking back to the endless stories of how he’d lost part of his foot and managed to take out a wyrm nest anyway.

Still. “I thought you were angry at me.”

A tiny smile flickers on Axel’s face. “I was. Three years ago.”

“Right,” mutters Roxas. Snow crumbles off the wall onto the rocky floor by Axel’s feet. Roxas stares unseeing at it, thinking back to when Axel was grinning all the time and teasing him about not knowing anything about the city.

His heart aches dully behind his ribs, but that’s all it does. Roxas sighs and whirls on his heel. “We need breakfast. Obviously we can’t go anywhere yet.”

“Obviously,” Axel trots after him, flicking his hand so warm blossoms again in the blanket draped over Roxas’ shoulders. “I have hard cheese and jerky. Yum.”

Roxas flashes a humorless grin over his shoulder. “Get used to that if you’re planning on traveling after you graduate.”

“I’ll get used to it, but I doubt I’ll like it,” Axel grins at him and grabs his pack from the ground. It’s mostly dry now, thanks to his magic evaporating the water in it. “What d’you have left?”

Roxas is still halfway rummaging through his pack. There’s a lot of tight-packed travel cake that they’re all practically experts in making by now, some of the same jerky Axel probably has, only soggier, a pack of a hearty spice-and-dried-meat mix packed with protein for emergencies and some small hard apples near the bottom. Roxas pulls them out with a triumphant sound. “Better than nothing. They’re… soggy, though. We’ll have better when this stops.”

The wind shrieks as if to prove that it won’t. Roxas narrows his eyes at the tiny opening. 

Axel holds out his hands for the food, “better when it’s cooked. Watch this.”

“Showing off?” Roxas hands the apples and the jerky over, then drops the packet of spices in his hand for good measure and leans back to watch. Challenge sparks in his eyes. “How are you gonna pull this off?”

Axel flashes him a grin and picks through the food. He drops the apples and jerky onto his pack and walks back to the entrance of the cave to scoop snow into his pan. By the time he’s back over by Roxas, the snow has melted and has just started boiling with no source of heat other than Axel himself. He sets it on a rock by the fire and dumps some of the spices into the boiling water. His fingers swirls in a circle and the water moves as if it’s being stirred.

Roxas watches this with wide eyes, unconsciously leaning closer so he can see the apples starting to soften. “That… doesn’t look like elemental magic.” He inches nearer on his knees, blinking at the tiny bubbles coming up from the pan.

“Heat. It’s a big part of fire, so I just take that part…” He waves his hand again, causing the pan to sizzle.

Roxas’ brows shoot up. “And stir pans with it? I’ve never seen a fire do that.”

Axel shrugs, “I can control fire better than nature does. ‘Cause I know what I want it to do.”

“Bold claim.” Roxas snorts. “Still have to pass the final test, though.”

“Well, if it’s cooking, I’ve got it down,” Axel laughs, tossing Roxas a fork. He catches it without taking his eyes off Axel. A small, confused frown tugs at his mouth. 

“Since when could you cook? Last I checked you were burning everything and had to beg me to get dinner with you.”

“I learned control,” Axel says with a smile. “It took a lot of burnt meals for me to get this far.”

“Anything less fiery than that explosion second year doesn’t count,” Roxas informs him seriously. He can’t make tea as fast, but he gets together the materials for it anyway, grimacing at the soggy leaves.

“Yeah… that was a low point,” Axel looks down at the food, “uh… tell me if you get cold. I can make the blanket warmer.”

Roxas is a little cold, but he’d never admit it. “Shouldn’t you be worried about yourself?”

“Magic,” Axel wiggles his fingers. Roxas ducks his head to hide his snort of laughter.

“Right. So you’re… immune to the cold?”

“No, but I just spelled my clothes,” he shrugs a shoulder, ignoring how his hands and face are much, much colder than the rest of him. Roxas frowns at him as he shoves a few thin pieces of wood into the ground to act as a spit for the tea.

“Don’t overdo it. You don’t have a bond to fix it.”

“I’ve managed this long,” Axel lets the food stop simmering and holds the pan out for Roxas. “Dig in.”

“Eat some yourself first,” Roxas orders, frowning harder at him.

“I’m not going to starve myself,” Axel rolls his eyes. “I was being polite.”

Roxas blinks at him, unable to decide what to do with that-- this sudden niceness, after so long. He narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because it’s what normal people do,” Axel raises an eyebrow, but then brings the pan back to himself. “But suit yourself.” He stabs an apple with his fork.

Roxas snorts at him and swings the kettle over the fire. “Since when are either of us normal people?”

“Is it so wrong to try and be civil?” Axel asks before popping the apple in his mouth. Roxas watches his expression, interested to see if his weird concoction is actually any good.

“No,” he finally admits, quiet. “But it’s… weird. Coming from you.”

Axel carefully chews the apple, expression thoughtful. “I told you that I’m not angry with you anymore. I’m over it. So now I’ll be as nice to you as I am to anyone,” he says simply.

Roxas’ jaw clenches. “That’s really big of you. So you forgave me for something you shouldn’t have been mad about in the first place, and I’m just supposed to be over that? Because you’re not mad, and that’s all that matters, right?”

“It only matters for how I treat you. You can do whatever you want,” Axel eats another apple before passing the pan back. 

“That’s worse,” Roxas informs him through gritted teeth, and stabs through an apple instead of explaining because Axel is just winding him up again and it’s coiling together with the rising fear of being trapped here forever: running out of food, and water, and freezing to death in the middle of the summer. 

The food isn’t actually half bad. He doesn’t bother to inform Axel of this, but he does eat about a fifth of what’s in the pot (too concerned about the future to eat any more) before passing it back. Over the fire, the kettle starts to whistle over the wind.

Axel doesn’t eat any more, instead taking his still-damp notebook out of his pack. He scribbles in it as if Roxas isn’t there. Roxas wants to ask, but busies himself with the tea instead and is glad for the warmth when he pours some into a little tin mug.

“You should drink some,” he mumbles to Axel after a few warming sips. 

Axel glances up at him. “Oh, sure, thanks,” he gets out his own mug and holds it up. Carefully, Roxas pours tea until it’s filled to the brim. Axel is probably a lot colder than he is right now no matter what he says. 

Axel’s notebook is resting against a rock. Roxas wonders again, pointlessly, what he’s writing.

“You wanna fact check me?” Axel snorts. 

“What?” Roxas’ eyes dart up to his face. He feels oddly like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t and frowns fiercely at Axel for that. Axel tosses the notebook at him.

“I’m still recording all the shit we run into. Go ahead.”

His handwriting’s gotten neater from the thin scrawl Roxas remembers. Research, probably, and all the writing about theory mages have to do. Roxas wouldn’t have the patience for it even if he did have any magic at all. The small, wild bit that everyone is born with used to let him blow things up, but that’s faded away with lack of training. 

That, and Roxas had always thought he wouldn’t need it. He’d have someone to work with, someone with bright blue jewels and a brighter smile and eyes like the endless fields back home.

He snaps the book shut just after the beginning of the description of the freak blizzard and hands it back to Axel, jaw clenched.

“...what?” Axel tucks the book back into his bag. “Was it that bad?”

That is probably how it looked. Roxas sighs. “No. I just thought about… nevermind.”

“We’re gonna be stuck here for a while, get whatever it is off your chest,” Axel waves a hand at him. 

“Just made me think about the future,” Roxas mutters and drops his eyes to his mug of tea, still steaming. “Thought it’d be different.”

“Yeah? Didn’t think you’d be stuck on a mountain in a blizzard with yours truly?” Axel laughs softly.

Roxas snorts and finally meets his eyes. “Can you blame me?”

“Nah.” Axel grins, “so where should you be, according to the plan?”

Roxas pushes his cup to his lips, taking a long sip of tea and ignoring the burn on the roof of his mouth. Coals snap and send sparks flying up. 

“Bonded,” he can’t quite keep the wistfulness from the quiet word. “Doesn’t really matter where else.”

“You really haven’t found anyone? I always thought you woulda,” Axel says gently. “You’re a good soldier.”

“I’m the top of my class,” Roxas says with a hint of a sharp little grin. Pride flashes bright in his eyes for a second before it falls away and he drops his gaze to his tea again. “You’re not bonded either. I guess you don’t need to be, the way you can use a sword.”

“It’d be nice,” Axel shrugs, “but when it hadn’t happened before senior year, I decided to learn. Can’t fight monsters without a sword.”

Roxas frowns at him across the fire. “You’re the top of your class. Why aren’t you bonded?”

It takes a long minute for Axel to answer. “Well, honestly, no one ever wanted to. You didn’t, Isa didn’t, then there was Larxene,” he shrugs, “and then Demyx found Zexion before I could ask him. So everyone I thought-- well. It’s not gonna happen. Not yet at least.” 

Something clenches hard in Roxas’ chest. His fist tightens on the mug of tea, sloshing some out over his hand.

Wincing, Roxas moves to dry it off and asks, quietly, “What is bonding? To you?”

“What is it to anyone?” Axel says ruefully. “It’s watching each other’s backs. Being there, always. It’s what Namine and Kairi have-- but I don’t think everyone can have that.” He shrugs a shoulder, arms looped around his knees. “What is it to you?”

Roxas laughs. It’s small and bitter and fades quickly into the crackling of the fire. “More than I can reasonably ask of anyone.”

“Yeah? You’re the kind who thinks it’s kinda like marriage?” Axel keeps his voice casual, but his body is too still. “I mean, that’d be ideal, but… you wouldn’t bond without it?”

Roxas hunches down under his arm, picking at the edge of the blanket. His mug is empty. Mechanically he reaches out to refill it. “I don’t want to bond without it.”

“And here I was, gonna suggest that bonding might make it easier to get outta this mess,” Axel says lightly. “But I’m not ready for that kinda commitment.”

Bright blue would shine on Axel’s pale skin. Roxas swallows a another burning gulp of tea. “We’ll be fine. We’ve survived everything so far. I just want to know what’s going on. None of this is natural.”

“No. It feels like magic. Really bad magic,” Axel looks at him, firelight playing over his cheeks. “Are you warm enough?”

Roxas offers him a weak little smile and turns his leg at the knee. “I’ll live. Are you?”

“I’ll live,” Axel repeats, rolling his eyes.

Roxas smiles against the edge of his mug, wistful because Axel can’t see it and isn’t looking, and can’t know that Roxas is still kind of stuck on his inclusion in the list of “people Axel could potentially have bonded with.”

Not that it matters now. He’d stayed in the past tense and no matter what he says about grudges and maturity and time moving forward, Roxas knows whatever happened, whatever it was he’d actually done to make Axel’s eyes dark and hurt and angry like they were, isn’t a fixable thing. If it was, they’d have fixed it by now. If it was they wouldn’t have been forced into this stupid mission together.

If it was, maybe Axel’s jewels would be blue already.

With a soft groan, he shoves himself free of the blanket to start gathering up the remains of their meal instead. It’s gonna be a long day.

By what Roxas assumes is midmorning but honestly could be any time of day, he’s entirely sick of the howling wind and the constant canvas of white, and having to shove his sword through the snow every half hour or so to make sure they have enough air. He’s sharpened all his knives and his sword, he’s counted out what food they have left and determined they’ll have to go hunting if they ever actually get out of here, and he’s gone over the events of their second year together in his mind about a hundred times.

The fire is dying down. Roxas shoves in another log, looks at their dwindling wood supply, and thunks his head hard against his knee. “I’m gonna kill your sister if we ever make it out of here.”

“Get in line,” Axel murmurs over his notebook. He’s been scribbling in it for the last hour by the light of the fire. “It’s her damn fault, I know it is. Namine isn’t this cruel.”

“Shouldn’t’ve let her take over the damn training program under Terra,” grouses Roxas as he splits another log with a tiny rusted axe from the back of the cave. “Even with the long-term supplies here, we’re not gonna last a day of this.”

“If it keeps going, we should leave,” Axel says quietly. “I’ll save up as much magic as I can. We’ll get back down the mountain, assignment be damned. I’d rather live.”

“It’s a blizzard,” Roxas frowns at him. “Have you ever been in a blizzard?”

“No,” Axel admits, dropping his head. “But what else can we do?”

Roxas glances again out at the endless white. “Blizzards killed a lot of people in our village every year because no one ever learned. We’re safer waiting it out here. It has to be magically induced, right? It’s August.”

“It must be,” Axel mumbles. “It stinks of magic.”

“So it can’t last forever,” Roxas reasons, even though theoretically there’s nothing stopping that. That he knows of. He wrinkles his nose. “Can it? You’ll know magic theory.”

“I mean, it could if you had a team of weather mages,” Axel muses, “but they’re rare as it is. A fleet of them is pretty improbable. If it’s one person, and they’re this powerful, it could go on for a while, though.”

Roxas considers this for a moment, then slams his head into his knee again. “Fuck this. Whoever is doing this is getting dragged back down the mountain on their face.”

Axel snorts a laugh. “I’d love to see that.”

“Give me a couple days,” Roxas mutters. The stones are still cold underneath him, despite the warmth of their fire.

Roxas barely remembers the rest of the day. He doesn’t know how to exist with Axel anymore. It’s been so long and they’ve changed so much, and Axel’s easy smile has been replaced with something that doesn’t reach his bright eyes.

Amusing himself by cooking their eventual dinner only works until it’s actually done, and then going over a brief recap of the day to make sure Axel’s notes are right is just awkward, and Axel is slow and fell silent sometime in the last hour. Their wood supplies are running low, but the fire is the same size, aided by magic. Roxas’ blanket hasn’t lost its heat, though.

Outside, the wind howls.

The shivers wrack his body as Axel tries to huddle closer under his robe. His magic is tapped, but he’s too cold to sleep. He’s tried, but even the warmth of the fire isn’t enough to fight off the chill. For all his bravado, the cold saps his magic faster than he’s ever experienced and he overdid it. Roxas is scratching a map of the mountain with a stick in the thin dirt on the cave floor, frowning down at the vague drawings with distant eyes. The trail they’re meant to be following is somewhere off to the east, curving up around a sheer cliff face to the summit. He thinks.

Lifting his head, Roxas opens his mouth to ask Axel and immediately stops short. “Axel?”

Axel doesn’t move, but his eyes flick up to Roxas after a moment. He can’t hide the shivers, they’re too intense. The little ball of warmth that’s perpetually in his chest has gone cold and he feels like he’s freezing from the inside out. 

“You’re freezing,” Roxas breathes somewhat pointlessly. He scrambles to his feet a second later, dragging up blankets and robes in a pile of fabric. “I told you not to--” Then he’s dragging everything around the fire, uncaring of the map being scratched way, to drape the whole lot over Axel as he flops down next to him on his knees. Axel grabs at the blankets with stiff fingers, pulling them tightly around himself.

“Th-thanks,” he stutters, curling into a tight ball. “I over d-did it.”

“Yeah you did,” mutters Roxas as he crowds closer, tugging Axel down by the fire. He slides one arm over the back of broad shoulders, curling his fingers around Axel’s arm.

He’s as cold as the snow outside and shivering loud enough Roxas can hear his clenched teeth clattering. He sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re frozen!”

Axel nods and presses into him. He’s much, much warmer than Axel and that almost makes Axel smile, but his cheeks are too cold to move. Roxas frowns at him and inches his way half-under the blanket. “Your core temperature is way too low, how did this--?”

“T-too much magic,” Axel mutters. 

If Axel wasn’t actually in danger of freezing to death Roxas would be snapping I told you so but he isn’t that heartless. He does think it very hard in Axel’s direction while shoving himself under the blankets to wrap both arms around him and then a leg, twined between his for good measure. 

This happened to Sora, once, a foggy memory dragged to the surface of Roxas’ brain while Axel shivers beside him. Roxas had found him huddled outside their tiny side-door with blue lips and a half-frozen smile on his face, barely responsive. He hadn’t been able to talk for hours, shaking on their tiny shared bed. Their parents had made Roxas strip them both down and curl close under the covers, right by the fire, and Roxas had complained and whined. His mother’s voice had been full of a tightness that scared him, though, and he’d eventually agreed.

Roxas had only learned later how very close Sora had been to death.

He goes stiff and immediately turns under Axel’s arm. “Axel. Hey.”

Axel pulls his eyes open enough to just barely see him. Ice spikes into Roxas’ stomach. Sora had the same film over his eyes, faraway and confused.

“You need to get warmer,” he mumbles. “Right now.”

Axel mumbles something indistinguishable and he falls against Roxas.

The last thing Roxas wants to do is take off Axel’s clothes and then his own, and their fire is dying so it would be useless anyway. He curls around Axel as fear curls into solid iron in his gut. Outside the wind shrieks in the dreary sunset, white turning to a full steely grey. “Hey. You need to stay awake, okay? Don’t you dare fall asleep on me. Talk to me. Tell me what happened in third year when everyone was talking about you for weeks.”

A tiny smile flickers on Axel’s face, not that Roxas can see it as he’s crushed against Roxas’ side. “I-it was… great. I-I t-took on Kairi. Sh-she thrashed me, b-but I set her h-hair on f-f-fire.”

“You set her hair on fire?” Roxas repeats, disbelieving and fearful all at once. Axel’s voice wavers on every word. “How did you get away with that?”

“Didn’t,” he laughs weakly, “detention for a month.” His words are getting clearer. Roxas tightens his fingers in Axel’s shirt.

“For a month? She let you off easy. Did you win?”

Axel shakes his head, his fingers pressing against Roxas, freezing even through his layers of clothes. “Nah. Was st-still worth it.”

“Are you sure? You set her on fire and didn’t even win because of it?” 

“T-takes more th-than that t-to shake up K-Kai,” Axel says proudly. “Sh-she t-takes no shit.”

Smiling, Roxas starts rubbing Axel’s arm, seeing it that will help at all, but-- it’s terrifying. There’s no improvement at all. “She’s the best instructor we have.”

“G-good,” Axel says softly. “She-she’s a great s-sister.” He huddles closer, trying in vain to wiggle his toes inside his boots. He’s quiet after that. In his panic Roxas can’t think of anything to say. 

“This happened to Sora once,” he finally blurts out, voice high. Axel’s shivers have intensified. “He got caught out in the snow trying to save a calf. It’d wandered into the blizzard. He wasn’t allowed to sleep the whole night because if he slept he might not wake back up. You better not fall asleep.”

“I’ll d-do my best,” Axel says quietly, pressing his freezing face into Roxas’ neck. “You-- you’re warm.”

Grimacing, Roxas turns so he can wrap both arms around Axel with his back to the cave wall, so Axel is by the fire. “Yeah, well. You’re freezing. Why’d you overextend yourself like that?” 

“Thought I c-could,” Axel breathes, his body relaxing marginally against Roxas.

“Guess you haven’t been in the cold much?”

Axel shakes his head. “Not like this.” That’s not surprising at all. Roxas reaches up to push one hand into Axel’s hair, pulling him closer, trying to see if he’s warmed at all. 

“It was like this every winter at home,” he says, to keep Axel focused on his voice. “One year, a blizzard hit. Early. No one saw it coming and our chickens were outside, and I thought I could get to them.”

Axel makes a soft noise to show that he’s listening. His skin is slowly warming up-- or maybe Roxas’ is cooling, he can’t be sure. His shivers have shifted from constant quaking into aftershocks that wrack his whole body a few times a minute. 

“I almost froze to death,” Roxas continues, low, not focusing on the memory but on Axel because he’s not going to let his partner die in a stupid cave on a stupid mountain in a blizzard that shouldn’t be happening. “The chickens did. Sora had to drag me back out of the storm.”

“N-not helping,” Axel mutters. He presses his fingers up under Roxas’ shirt to press against his skin.

“The point is, I know what I’m doing,” Roxas snaps under the cold of his fingers. 

“Uh huh,” Axel smiles against his skin. “R-really good at this.”

Roxas pinches him. Just a little. “I’m not the one trying to freeze.”

Axel jerks and knees him in the thigh. It’s not very hard, but at least he can move. “Shut u-up.” 

“I’m summarizing the facts,” he snorts with relief clear in his voice. “Guess you can’t be trusted around mountains.”

“It’s s-summer,” Axel gripes, his fingers digging into Roxas’ hips. “N-not s-supposed to b-be cold.”

Axel’s starting to warm up. Roxas can feel the core of him, hear the energy coming slowly back into his voice, which is good because it means they don’t have to strip down and--

Roxas’ ears burn. He scowls at himself and thinks about howling wind and not about Axel’s hands on his hips, or that Axel smells like woodsmoke. “Tell that to the asshole creating a blizzard.”

“Oh, I will,” Axel breathes. The shivers are to a minimum now and he uncurls slightly, his grip less tight. 

Lifting his head, Roxas scans his face, brow still creased in worry. “Are you warming up?”

“Yeah,” Axel smiles at him, rolling over onto his back. He hisses and jerks back up. “Fuck it’s cold.”

Roxas, dizzy with relief and flooded with too many feelings to make sense of, just rolls his head back against the stone and laughs. “Yeah.”

Axel rubs his hands together, careful to not use much of his magic. A little seeps out into his toes to warm them up inside of his boots. “Thanks,” he murmurs. Roxas’ laughter fades into the crackling of the fire. 

“Wasn’t going to let you freeze to death.”

“If you had, you could have used my body for warmth,” Axel smirks at him. Rolling his eyes, Roxas pushes himself up to lay the back of his hand on Axel’s forehead. 

“With how cold you were, I would’ve just frozen to death too.” He’s cool, still, but that’s better than the iciness from before. Sora had been hot, back then, his body overcompensating. It must be different with magic.

“Well, good thing I’m still alive then,” Axel says. He grabs Roxas’ hand before he can pull back completely, sliding their fingers together. “We’ll get out of this.” Roxas’ lips part soundlessly, surprise rippling through him. Axel’s eyes are clear and bright again. 

“Y… yeah. We’ll… be fine.” The roaring and moaning of the wind has faded into background noise. Roxas can only hear it when he thinks about it, whistling through cracks in stone, pushing ice and snow with long fingers into what crevices it can reach. Their air hole is starting to clog up again, frozen at the edges. Smoke has collected in a dark pool above their heads.

Axel’s hand is warming in his. Roxas can just feel the flutter of his pulse.


	2. Part 2

Axel rolls over, slinging an arm over his face to block out the light. His whole body is sticky and sweat drips down his face. He’s too hot and there’s warmth all around him, something lying on his arm, pressed up against his side. With a flick of his fingers, he extinguishes the banked coals in an instant. The solid heat next to him isn’t so easy to get rid of. He forces his eyes open and he’s pulled back into his current reality. Roxas is lying next to him, trying to keep each other warm through the blizzard all night. He carefully pulls his arm out from under Roxas, moving away from him so he can toss off the blanket and his robe. It’s still somewhat dark in the cave, but sunlight shows from the entrance around thirty yards away.

“What the--” He stumbles toward the entrance, wiping sweat from his brow.

It’s bright. There’s no snow left, only luminous green plants cascading down the mountainside. Birds trill and leaves drip with condensation, winking in the bright morning sunlight. Without the yowling wind, the air is too still and filled to the brim with moisture.

Behind him, Roxas makes a grumpy noise in his throat, shifting in the pile of blanket and robe until he’s kicked them off entirely. Only then does he sit up, squinting and frowning into the sunlight. “What?”

“It’s gone,” Axel says, stunned. “All of it. All that snow.”

“What?” Roxas repeats and shoves himself up, bracing on the warm stone to join Axel at the front with one hand shading his eyes.

His mouth drops. “It’s like it never happened.”

“How…” Axel shakes his head, mouth fallen open. “Magic. Fucking weather magic. Who are we even dealing with.”

“I wanna know why!” Roxas stares around dismayed like he expects to find snow in the shadow of a plant or something, but there’s nothing: mud and grass and blooming brush far too late in the season. “Who needs a blizzard for days? Do they know we’re coming? Why get rid of the snow?”

“Dunno. Where are they, then?” Axel slumps against the wall of the cave. “Gods. At least it’ll be easier to get up to the top.”

“Unless they throw another blizzard at us,” Roxas snaps. “Okay. Fine. We’re dealing with at least a weather mage. Either a really good one or a really bad one. Let’s get out of here before something else stupid happens.”

“Breakfast first?” Axel says hopefully, turning his eyes to Roxas. He looks so sad and hopeful that Roxas is startled from his anger and has to laugh a little.

“Yeah. Yeah, breakfast first. Maybe the bread dried out.”

“If not, I can handle that,” Axel pushes off the wall with a grin. “Won’t lose my magic again when it’s warm.”

“You sure?” Roxas tosses him another grin, then glances back at the extinguished coals. Sweat is already starting to bead on his forehead. “And then back to fighting. Maybe everything else was scared off by the storm?”

Everything else, it turns out, was not scared off by the storm. By the time they manage to stop for a quick lunch, they’ve had to fight off another nest of wyrms, a couple very angry goblins, a kappa way too far out of its natural habitat, and an actual honest-to-gods troll (albeit a very small and very stupid one.) Their lunch is interrupted by a sylph looking to steal from them which Axel has to send off into the wind shrieking about heat, and then Roxas has to extract a couple gnomes trying to dig their way into Axel’s pack.

Despite all this, they reach the trail to the summit in the middle of the afternoon with the sun blazing down bright and hot. They’re drenched in sweat and various bloods and other fluids Roxas would really rather not think about, and they’re both sore and hungry and exhausted. The air is thinner up here. Usually, being so high cools everything off enough that it’s livable. Now it feels like they’re by a bonfire in the middle of a summer’s day, and it makes the reeking things collecting on them smell even worse.

Ominously, thick black smoke starts to billow from the top of the mountain about halfway up the precarious trail (really more of a passable area between large lichen-covered boulders than an actual trail.) The stone begins rumbling beneath their feet. Roxas lets out a stream of creative curses, one hand on his sword. “What the fuck.”

“Does this guy wanna bring down the whole mountain?” Axel takes a step back, grabbing onto one of the boulders on the side of the trail. “This is getting stupid.”

Roxas hovers nearby, eyes flicking between the smoke and Axel. “This was already stupid. Let’s just-- ugh, get up there. I’ve never been this hot.”

“Yeah,” Axel sighs, “okay. Just-- keep me from falling, okay?”

“Right behind you,” Roxas promises, and reaches up to steady him as he steps away from the rocks. “Keep low to the ground if you can.”

“Easier for you,” Axel shoots back, his other hand landing on Roxas’ shoulder. “How is this guy so powerful? Is it more than one guy?”

“Comments on my height can wait until we’re safe and I can kick your ass for them,” Roxas shakes his head and starts to push on upwards, locking his arm with Axel’s to keep him steady. “They’re strong. I just want to know what this has to do with all the monsters.”

“Yeah, that shouldn’t give them any power over monsters,” Axel pushes on up the mountain, teeth gritted tight. “This is all wrong.” The rumbling is only getting worse, but Roxas keeps them both steady, calling on all his training to keep his footing.

They’re almost at the top when a jet of flame erupts with a high screech. Roxas’ blood runs cold.

“Oh. Shit.”

“No,” Axel breathes, gripping Roxas tighter. “Shit. Is that really--?”

The flames spray up into the air again, accompanied with a loud roar.

“It’s a fucking dragon,” Roxas groans. “That’s a dragon.”

“Do we really have to fight a dragon?” Axel’s face is as white as the snow. 

“We could try to turn back--” Roxas starts to say. A scaled head appears around the side of a boulder, showers of rocks ricocheting toward them. Roxas has to yank Axel to the side and into the loose gravel accumulated on the slope. The dragon’s roar echoes through the boulders. “We do now!”

Axel yelps, falling against him to avoid the blue flames that shoot right at where he was a moment before. “Oh gods,” he gasps, clutching at Roxas’ arms with tight fingers. He sucks in a breath. His eyes are ringed with white. “What do we-- how can we fight a dragon?”

Roxas stares back, desperately trying to think over everything, all his training, all the lessons spent on dragon fights back when they were common decades ago.

“Wear it down,” he spits out, memory surging sudden. The words spill panicked from his lips. “Tag team it, confuse it, don’t let it focus on either one of us. A dragon’s just a really big wyrm. They get angry fast and they’re smart but we’re smarter. Bad eyesight. Good hearing. Your fire will be really distracting, so if you can keep it engaged long distance then I can get in close and make it mad. The madder it gets, the dumber it’ll get.”

“Okay,” Axel says on a breath. “Okay. We can do this.” He lets go of Roxas’ arms and pulls back. The dragon roars when he comes back into view, but Axel whips around, his hands moving in a complex gesture that releases fire in an arc around the beast. Roxas waits until its focus shifts entirely to Axel, swirling golden eyes bright with rage as it snaps after him. When it lunges, he darts forward under the massive arc of its neck, pushing off solid rocks to give himself leverage enough to slash at one of the beast’s massive forelegs. It rears back roaring and claws at the source of pain faster than Roxas can get away. 

“Keep going!” He screams as he shoves himself sideways, tearing the dragon’s claw out of his armor with a wet sound.

Axel sends another rush of flames crawling up the beast’s stomach as he buffets it with wind from the side, slamming it against the boulders away from Roxas. The dragon screams a shattering sound that forces Axel to cover his ears. He’s sent tripping back over loose stones. The dragon starts to run at them, but its claws scrape on the rocks littering the trail. Roxas throws himself at its haunches, aiming for tendons or soft skin or anything he has a chance of reaching. 

It reels over a stone as Roxas connects; his blade bounces off of hard scale with a metallic ring and he’s tossed backwards from the rebound. His reflexes kick in just in time for him to twist in midair and catch himself on a boulder. He launches back off with the momentum sending him whipping underneath stomping wicked claws but here, at least, he can slice across the dragon’s thigh and send it screeching and faltering nearly on top of Roxas.

“No--” Axel shouts and sends panicked flames under the dragon’s belly. Its scream rends the air and great wings unfurl, launching it up into the sky. Its pale underbelly is scorched and bloody. It lurches to one side, still screeching, and wheels around to spot Axel among the rocks. 

“Shit,” he breathes, staring at it as the beast dives down for him again. He pulls out his sword but the dragon is roaring and spitting flame as it bears down on him. Roxas is just barely stumbling up from the rocks, knocked aside by a powerful leg as the dragon took off.

“Axel!” he lunges forward, trying to knock him out of the way-- fire mage or not, nothing can stand up to a full blast of dragon-flame. He collides with Axel’s middle, sending them tumbling head over heels down the slope until they’re stopped a boulder, stone crushing their lungs. Roxas’ head is spinning. He aches, but he forces himself to check Axel is breathing before whirling to sprint back up the slope with his sword out, calling out for the dragon wheeling and spitting fire in every direction.

“Roxas,” Axel calls after him, voice rough as he pushes himself up, his arms scratched up and a bump growing on his head. “I promise my power to protect and aid you.”

“What--” Roxas stumbles and nearly turns to ask him what the hell he’s doing, but the dragon dives down again and he leaps to the side to avoid its claws. Thwarted, the dragon screams and launches itself off a boulder. Roxas charges for it and screams “I promise my skills to you to protect and serve! Distract it!” as the dragon heads straight for him.

As soon as the words leave Roxas’ mouth, the bond seals. A surge of power wells up in him, the tickle of magic under his skin swelling into a torrent. The aches and exhaustion of the last few days are gone. 

A grin lights up his face and he dashes forward, dragging his sword out of its sheath. Fire surges up along the metal as Axel swipes at the dragon, leaving the thinnest of scratches and charred scales. The dragon yowls and snaps after him. From the other side of it Roxas shouts; it snarls and whips back around the other way. The boulder in its path collapses on impact, rocks spraying across the path, dust bursting into the air. 

“Over here, scalebreath!” Sunlight flashes off Roxas’ sword. He darts backward until the ponderous head stretches after him. 

For the briefest of seconds, its soft throat is bared. 

Axel’s heart leaps. He scrambles forward to shove his sword into flesh, fire and steel biting deep. The dragon shrieks, rearing its head, and jerks away, but the motion forces the sword deeper, yanking it from Axel’s grip.

The dragon’s scream of pain rends the air. Full of bond-renewed energy, Roxas rushes forward, shoving himself off rocks. He narrowly misses a tooth as he plunges his sword up through the soft roof of the dragon’s mouth with a crunch of metal through bone. Roxas thrusts the dagger forward into its throat just as it tries to roast him and claw him all at once. The flames die in its mouth with a wet gurgle. Smoke rises from its throat as it takes one earth-shaking step back, then another. Axel’s hands move again and flames rise up to shoot down its throat, rushing past where its flames ignite to the vulnerable organs inside. 

The thud when the dragon falls rumbles through bones of the mountain. 

Roxas stumbles away, barely aware of yanking his dagger out of the beast’s throat as one last wet breath choked with ash escapes.

Then it is still. 

Fire crackles distantly, caught on some dry brush somewhere. Rock dust settles into his hair. Roxas stares at the giant, unmoving corpse for a few long, silent seconds.

Then he bursts out in a victorious whoop, shoving his sword into the air. “Dead!” Whirling on unsteady legs, laughing and wild-eyed, he stumbles down loose gravel toward Axel. “Are you okay?”

Axel falls back against a boulder, relief washing through him. His limbs won’t support him and he sinks to the ground with a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

Roxas’ answering grin is fierce and full of pride. “Been better.”

“Yeah? Want me to heal you?” Axel waves him over, his legs splayed out limp on the ground. Roxas sinks to his knees, wincing at the seep of blood under his armor. Adrenaline still pounds through him and blocks most of the pain.

He checks over Axel with clumsy hands, lingering near burn-shiny skin on his shoulder starting to blister. “Heal yourself first.”

“Get your armor off,” Axel retorts, “then help me. I need to get the cloth off the burn.”

“Stupid lizard cut my leathers,” mutters Roxas as he reaches up behind himself to tug at the other straps on his armor. It falls off in battered pieces, revealing his formerly blue tunic stained with red.

“Get that off too,” Axel waves at his tunic, critically eying the wound. 

Roxas is already trying to tug it over his head. “It’s not that bad,” he mutters behind fabric as he twists deftly to get his arm free. 

A long, shallow gash stretches from his right shoulder down across his back, streaked with blood. It’ll leave a scar to match the network already laced over his skin.

Axel waves him forward. First he only looks at the gash, but he can’t help but trace the lines of Roxas’ skin, old wounds scattered over his body. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself up onto his knees, one hand braced on Roxas’ chest. He channels enough magic into the wound to knit it up and push out any infection, but no more. It tingles over Roxas’ skin and into his veins, immediate and bright and glowing in a way he doesn’t remember it being.

“...what?” Axel asks. He drops his hand, satisfied with the healing-pink of Roxas’ shoulder.

“Nothing,” breathes Roxas, eyes darting quickly between Axel’s hand and his mouth. Something warm and satisfied swells up through him, stealing what breath he had left. “I’ll get that shirt taken care of. I’ve. I’ve done it before. C’mere.”

“Okay,” Axel says quietly, shifting so Roxas has better access to his shoulder. “When did you have to do this before?”

“Third year training trip across the plains,” Roxas answers quietly, sliding the blade of his dagger just under the charred edge of Axel’s shirt. “Tons of salamanders out there.”

Axel turns his face away, “oh yeah. Those nasty things.” He stops himself from wincing at the tug of the fabric by staring at the bright blue jewel on his wrist. It’s so bright, so different from the white his jewels were for the last year. They’re beautiful against his skin, almost like the aqua ones on Zexion’s wrists that he’s so envious of.

It’s slow going but Roxas keeps talking through it, other hand gentle and steadying on Axel’s shoulder. “I had to scrape half of Hayner’s shirt off. He yelled at me the whole time.”

“Hopefully I’m a better patient,” Axel tries to laugh. Roxas’ hands are comforting on him and the power coursing through him is more than he’s ever felt. The contact makes it stronger. His textbooks always said that.

“Well, you haven’t started trying to punch me,” Roxas swipes across another bit of fabric that catches on the dagger. He grimaces and yanks it out in one fell swoop. “Sorry about that.”

Axel holds back a yelp. He grins up at Roxas, blinking away tears of pain, “you’re not bad at this.”

Roxas smiles back and cuts another piece of fabric free. The skin beneath is angry red and beading with blood where it isn’t blistering. “When you have to do it while dodging fists and cursing-- I’m the only one who can handle him,”

“Yeah, I remember him. He really didn’t like me,” Axel sighs, letting his head fall back so he can stare at the sky. It’s perfectly blue now, dotted with small pale clouds.

“He doesn’t like anyone but me, Pence, and Olette. And Seifer, but good luck getting him to admit that,” Roxas grins and runs fingers down Axel’s arm, testing for anything else. “You’re done.”

Axel lets out a breath and takes over, channeling his magic into the wound. He doesn’t use a lot, just enough to close up the skin and stop the skin from tightening. It knits up without him so much as lifting a finger. Roxas’ eyes are fixed on him, fascinated by the slow process of skin regenerating itself. There’s a tangible glow to his magic, dark blue, that Roxas hadn’t noticed on himself.

He frowns at it. 

Blue winks at him from Axel’s wrist.

All at once, Roxas remembers words shouted, the rush of power, hot on his skin like a brand, magic running through him like a balm so he could whip around and smash his sword through thin scale one more time. He sucks in a hard breath, his eyes drawn up to blue in the center of Axel’s forehead. “Your gems.”

Somewhere on his own body is a mark inked in emerald green. He’s had dreams about that mark: reassuringly warm when his bonded is nearby, linking them like a mage’s gems. The catalyst for the magic rooted in him.

Only the wind responds, whipping around them like the blizzard. Axel silently meets his eyes, his fingers brushing yet again over the blue crystals.

“It’s helping, isn’t it?”

“It’s amazing,” Roxas says in a hushed voice. “I feel like I could take on another one.”

“We might have to,” Axel reaches out for his hand to pull himself up. “Sorry that I just-- did it. I know how you feel about bonding. We can break it once we’re off the mountain.”

“No--” Roxas says, abrupt. He realizes how fast it was and clamps his mouth shut, letting go of Axel’s hand. “It’s okay. It was a great idea. Can you see… my mark, anywhere?”

Axel’s eyes run down Roxas’ body again. There’s so much to see, so much that wasn’t there three years ago. He slowly walks around him and his fingers brush the mark that had appeared as suddenly as the color in his jewels. It’s seated between Roxas’ shoulderblades, a vibrant green circle, spikes pointing in eight directions around its circumference.

“It’s perfect,” he murmurs. Something sparks from his fingers into the mark when he touches it. Roxas shivers as the feeling settles into his belly, warm and sharp.

“I, uh. Should put a shirt back on.” His voice is hoarse. He coughs around it and drops suddenly toward his pack, flung against a boulder during the fight. “It really did help.”

“Yeah,” Axel breathes. The power is elating, roiling through his veins even after the adrenaline has settled. “Bonding-- feels good.”

“Now we just need to figure what the hell is going on,” mutters Roxas as he drags out his spare tunic. It’s still grimy, but it’s better than the sun beating down on his bare, raw back. “Dragons don’t live on this mountain.”

Axel nods, gingerly strapping his pack onto his back. It’s too heavy to dangle off one shoulder, the strap digging into his blistered skin.

“If it’s the same person who conjured that blizzard…” 

“Who knows what else they have up there,” Axel surveys the dragon, then plants one foot on its side, yanking his sword out of its chest. Blue-black blood spurts up and sprays over his face and chest. “Ew!”

Roxas makes a face of agreement as he tugs his own free. “After we graduate-- hot springs. Funded by the teachers. We deserve it.”

“Ugh,” Axel grumbles, dragging his sword behind him. “Yeah. They owe us a lot for this. This is just getting ridiculous.”

Roxas waits for him to fall into step, groaning again at the smell of dragon and wyrm and sweat and blood rising off both of them. He’d stopped smelling it until the new layer was added on top. “Do you think they knew?” 

“Nah,” Axel flicks some dragon blood off his face and onto Roxas. “I trust that they wouldn’t do all this to us on purpose.” Roxas wrinkles his nose and flicks a bit off his fingers back so it lands near Axel’s nose.

“Mature.”

“I bet it’s the bond,” Axel says seriously, “I’m a very mature person. Or I was.”

Rolling his eyes, Roxas reaches over just to smear a handful of blood down Axel’s bare arm. “You are not.”

Axel tries to throw him off, more of the sticky blood getting on Roxas’ tunic. “I am! I’m the top of my class thank you very much.”

Roxas twists around just enough to throw Axel off balance, locking his uninjured arm behind his back with a deft flick of his wrists until Axel is half-pinned against a boulder. 

He grins and reaches up to smear his bloody fingers down Axel’s nose. “So am I.”

Axel barely notices the blood on his face, his breath gone. He stares at the stone, not really seeing it. But he feels Roxas pressed up against his back, his hand on Axel’s face, his knee pressed between Axel’s legs. It’s so much more acute now than it’s ever been before. He can feel his magic flowing through both of them, enhanced by their skin touching, Roxas’ hand locked around his wrist.

It takes him a minute to get his tongue to follow his brain’s instructions, barely saying the words, “it’s a different class.”

His voice is breathless and it shoots through Roxas like fire, awareness lighting every nerve ending. This close he can practically feel Axel’s magic like it’s his own. His pulse pounds under Roxas’ fingers. 

He jerks back like he’s been shocked, letting Axel go as abruptly as he’d pinned him in the first place. 

His tongue tangles thick over itself and he has to swallow hard, digging nails into his own palm to remind himself: it’s over. It’s been over since sometime second year. There’s no need to bring it all up again now. He doesn’t remember what they’d been talking about. “We should go. Whoever brought that dragon up here must know it’s dead by now.”

Axel nods, slowly pushing himself off the boulder. It takes a minute to catch his breath, his body too hot, his magic wanting to pulse and push at Roxas, a give and take he’s never experienced before. “Another fight. Great.”

Roxas smiles grimly and focuses on holding his sword, the familiar grip soothing in ways nothing else could ever match. “I’m not in the mood to go easy.”

Those words make Axel’s gut clench, heat rushing through him all over again. He doesn’t look at Roxas, instead trudging back up the mountain. They’re close to the summit now, and hopefully to the culprit of all of this. That’s a much easier thing to focus on than Roxas. Who he’s now bonded to. Who wants to bond with someone he loves. Axel is quickly seeing the appeal.

The wind picks up as they climb in silence, picking between the rubble and scorched boulders. It’ll be nothing but bones in a few years, a relic of a battle that should never have happened. Dragons, as a rule, don’t attack first. They’re lazy, solitary creatures who like to be left alone amid their food and treasures. Rare and usually feral is the dragon who seeks out something to fight.

And they don’t go feral without magical intervention. If Roxas and Axel hadn’t happened to be on the mountain, there would’ve been a feral dragon in town very shortly after and Roxas doesn’t want to think about the immense consequences of that. 

He scowls at the rocks under his feet and picks up the pace, itching to get his hands on whatever idiot thought this was a good idea. Axel’s magic burns under his skin, urging him on even further. He can feel it singing in his nerves, making him more aware of the air and the rocks and Axel in front of him, nervous tension pouring off him in waves.

Roxas can’t really blame him. This whole trip has been ridiculous. They’re both missing most of their finals.

As the air thins, the slope levels out. The true highest peak is a sharp jutting point that got Dagger Peak its name, but the summit itself is a sharp level plain just below it, sheared off eons ago by some unknown force. A tiny lake rests in a dip in the center of it, supporting a few sparse bushes and hardy grasses. Rocks here rise from the bones of the mountain like crooked fingers.

The wind is fierce. No one is visible on the plain. Roxas stops just short of the trail leading down to the lake and reached out to snag Axel’s wrist. “Something’s off.”

Axel jerks away from him, sucking in a breath. He quickly subsides, taking a calming breath. This is far more important than whatever personal strife he doesn’t have with Roxas. He takes a step back, falling into place next to Roxas. 

The air is thin, magic stringing around him like barbed wire. It makes his skin crawl.

“Magic,” he says on a breath.

“Yeah,” Roxas breathes back, then jerks. “Wait. I can feel it too. Is that because of--?” His gaze skitters to Axel’s forehead where his jewel gleams bright blue. Roxas’ heart skids against his ribs. Nodding, Axel wraps his fingers carefully around Roxas’ wrist in turn. He closes his eyes and reaches out with his magic, poking in the holes and divots of the summit. When he rounds the summit, he gasps sharply and yanks on Roxas’ wrist. “He’s here. A camp.”

He opens his eyes and points over the other side where he can feel the source of the power. “Really powerful.”

Roxas’ expression flattens. “So we need to be careful. Does he know we’re here? He can probably feel us, right? Or at least his dragon being gone.”

“Yeah, he probably knows. I guess that we don’t have surprise going for us,” he looks at Roxas, gripping his wrist tightly. “Are you ready?”

“To kick his ass?” Roxas grins. It’s sharp-edged and wild. “Oh yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

Axel grins back, “okay.” He lets go of Roxas and claps him on the back before dashing across the summit.

He’s not even really trying to disguise his camp: Roxas can see smoke trailing into the sky as he gets closer, hidden behind Axel, and the faint glow of magic touches the sky. Axel’s magic is brighter still. 

Axel pauses just over the ridge, bemused. A young woman, barely older than the two of them, sits cross-legged at the fire. Axel glances back at Roxas, waving him forward. He starts to murmur under his breath, casting a spell to capture and subdue. Her body jerks as the magic starts to take effect, trying to fight against it. She finds a tiny snag in the spell and grasps it. Suddenly a dagger is in the air, flying toward Axel’s head.

Roxas snatches it from midair. “Nice try.”

“I-- I--” she stutters but the next moment she’s on the ground as Axel’s magic picks up again and the spell wraps tight around her. Axel wraps it around her, squeezing tight. She thrashes, then twitches, then falls still.

Axel takes a deep breath before running up behind Roxas. “Thanks for the save, man.”

Roxas grins at him and yanks his pack off his back. “Like I’m gonna let you get stabbed after we killed a dragon? Looks like she was up to something else,” he toes at the half-formed spell circle on the ground. The mage gasps, her eyes wide as he destroys her work.

“Yeah, yeah,” Axel toes her gently with his boot, “of course we’re gonna ruin it when you made a blizzard, pissed off every beast on this mountain, and set a dragon on us.”

She writhe, trying to kick him, but Roxas drops swiftly beside her to pin her down, eyes hard. “Don’t even try!”

“You wouldn’t understand!” She bursts out, snarling at him. “You-- you killed the dragon!”

“The dragon you tried to tame.”

She glares. “It should have worked. You must have messed it up--”

“Save it,” Roxas rolls his eyes and shoves her over onto his side. “You set a blizzard on us. A blizzard, eleven wyrms, 30 gnomes, some goblins, a really pissed-off wolf, a couple ogres. A dragon who almost knocked Axel’s brains out!”

“But it didn’t,” Axel mumbles, taking the rope from Roxas to wrap it around her wrists. “That thing was vicious. Dragons shouldn’t attack humans unless we provoke them.”

“And you provoked it like an idiot,” Roxas snaps. “C’mon. I don’t wanna stay up here any more.”

Axel tugs the rope tighter and then sits back on his heels. “Alright. At least the trip down should be easier.”

“I’m not going quietly!” The mage cries out, kicking her legs under her. 

Roxas rolls his eyes. “Like you have a choice. Ax? Do the honors? She doesn’t need to be awake.”

Axel grins back at him and sweeps a dramatic bow. “I’d love to,” he holds up his still-grimy sword and brings the hilt down on her head. She opens her mouth to speak, but then slumps back on the ground next to Roxas.

“That was satisfying.”

“It looked satisfying,” Roxas almost sounds wistful.

He’s still covered in dragon blood and wyrm blood and gods only know what else, and the mage is out cold.

The lake sparkles in the late sunlight. Roxas bites his lip. “We smell really bad.”

Axel follows his gaze. “And nothing should attack us now…” He glances back at Roxas, holding out a hand. “Shall we?”

“Please,” Roxas groans as he curls their fingers together, tugging Axel toward the shore of the lake. “I’m gonna have to burn these clothes anyway.”

“I didn’t bring extra pants,” Axel grimaces but stumbles after him. 

Laughing, Roxas leads them out to a rock overlooking the water. It’s clear enough to see the bottom, jewel-blue and purple in the late sun. Roxas almost feels bad jumping in.

He does it anyway and splashes Axel in the process. Axel shouts at him from the shore, stripping off his clothes down to his shorts. It’s all tossed aside and he takes a few steps back so he can dash back and jump into the lake. The wave catches Roxas and tosses him into the water. He comes back up with his hair in his face just in time to splash Axel back.

They can’t really stay long-- the mage will wake up any moment and they still need to get back down the mountain-- but Roxas can’t care right now. Watching the grime floating off of him is too nice. Axel laughs loudly, his hair plastered to his face and shoulders. His skin stings where he was burned and there are countless cuts on his body, but the water is cool and he doesn’t want to leave.

Roxas wades a bit closer to him, barely keeping his head above the water. Axel can stand comfortably. That really isn’t fair. “Can you heat the water up? I don’t ever want to smell dragons or wyrms again.”

“Yeah,” Axel smiles and reaches out a hand for him. The water around Axel starts to warm up, feeling like a bath at home. It takes more energy than he’ll admit.

Roxas’ eyes drop shut while the water heats up. It’s coming off Axel, too, and he shifts a bit closer as steam curls around them and rises into the cooling air. He sighs, feeling briefly into Axel’s magic (it’s easier than it probably should be, enough that Roxas hardly notices he’s doing it.) “Don’t push it. Let’s go to the hot springs after we get back.”

“Sure,” Axel murmurs, resisting the urge to wrap Roxas in his arms. “First we gotta get the mage put away.”

Roxas sighs again. “Yeah. We should get going. First--” he pushes away from Axel a bit to dunk himself under the water, swimming down just enough to come back up with a few handfuls of rocky sand. “For cleaning,” he explains at the look he gets. “So we’re not gross.”

Axel sighs, holding his hands out for some of it, “fine, but I’m taking a real bath when we’re back.”

“Hot springs,” Roxas reminds him as he drops the sand into Axel’s outstretched palms. Their fingers brush as he draws back. “Just-- just think about those.”

“Oh, I will,” Axel starts scrubbing down his body with a grimace. “This reminds me too much of first year.”

“This reminds me too much of every year,” Roxas mutters, which is true, because he really should be used to the rasp of sand on his skin by now. 

It’s much harder to scrub himself down when he keeps getting distracted by Axel, though. By the time they’re both finished and wading out again, Roxas is pink-faced and cold and loathe to change into his dry set of clothes. They’re not much cleaner than he was (but it’s better than covertly staring at Axel as he gets dressed, which is creepy and also really bad for hiking back down the mountain.)

By now, the sun is starting to set. Roxas thinks briefly of just camping up here, but they have finals to get to and he still kind of smells like death (with added lakewater.) And Axel is too distracting and confusing for his own peace of mind. Sighing, he hikes his pack onto his back. “We should try and get off the summit for tonight. At least past the dragon.”

“Ugh. Yeah, I don’t want to learn what rotting dragon smells like. Want me to carry her?” Axel gestures down at the mage, his grimy clothes pulled back over his body.

“That’s gonna get tiring,” Roxas frowns, eying her. “We can trade off. I’ll do it tonight.”

Axel shrugs a shoulder, “okay. Maybe we can make her walk tomorrow.”

The trek down the mountain isn’t nearly as bad as the journey up it. The animals are more skittish than aggressive and they only have to fight a few frightened goblins who are possessive of their territory. It takes them a day and a half to reach the foothills this time, sped by good weather and a strange camaraderie that hadn’t been there before. Roxas finds himself telling stories from the years Axel had missed-- Hayner’s spectacular entrance into their third-year exam, and when half the school had followed Sora around on some visit, star-struck until Riku had shown up and stolen all the attention away. When he’d almost fallen off the tall tower in the center of campus and convinced a professor to let him out of a grueling paper as a result.

Axel can’t help but laugh at nearly every one, enrapt by Roxas’ expressive body and the easy tone of his voice. He’s drawn in to the point that the last few days don’t seem so bad, to end so well with Roxas talking to him like he used to. 

Being with him is so much more natural than being without him. It’s a wonder that he survived the last few years, that he had friends, boyfriends even, when so much of him is still connected to Roxas. He hasn’t thought about Demyx since that first day, when he’d left him naked in his bed. Guilt twists his gut-- Demyx is wonderful and they have fun together, but he doesn’t have that spark in his eyes, the one that ignites in Roxas’ when he fights or when he tells a story about his friends and brother. Axel’s heart stutters and his throat goes tight when he looks at Roxas, like first year all over again. He’d made every excuse to spend time with him then. It got to the point where Kairi took notice and sat him down to talk about relationships and sex. That was mortifying. He learned things about her and Namine that he wishes he could forget.

That all ended when Roxas started seeing Isa. 

Their relationship was quick, from Roxas’ crush to Isa’s willingness and then to Axel somehow being integral to getting them together. It was a joke, to him. An absurd idea, that Roxas could be with anyone else but Isa took it seriously and Axel, crushed, lashed out. He left Roxas and Isa behind and tried to forget what they’d done to him.

What he had done to himself.

Heartache faded into classes and friends, and left bitterness like a thin sheet of dust over those years. Axel thought he moved on until now. But Roxas does that: he’s bright and immediate and demands attention, and burns through life without letting anything fade away.

It would be so easy to tell him the real reasons for everything. The words press against his lips, circling in his mind whenever the silence stretches out between them. 

Roxas wants to bond with someone he loves. That stops him from putting voice to anything. Axel loves him (adores him, hasn’t moved on after all this time even after years of self-inflicted misery), but that may not be enough. Axel pushed him away until he’d stopped reaching out. There’s no reason for Axel to put himself through that again when they’ll go their separate ways as soon as they’re back at school.

Despite the pervading exhaustion and the terrified mage they’re dragging with them, the time goes much faster. Torn between being afraid and being furious at them, the mage, whose name is apparently Liliana, spends the time sullen and silent. Roxas ignores her in favor of following tentative threads of friendship with Axel.

Axel has the mage knocked out and slung over his shoulder when they trek back into the Academy grounds. She’s draped like a limp sack of grain, her hair hanging loose down Axel’s back.

Roxas doesn’t have any pity for her. He nudges Axel as they head through campus. “Everyone’s staring.”

“Well, we do look pretty terrible. And we’re carrying an unconscious woman,” Axel gives him a little smile, hefting Liliana higher. “And we’re late. Really late.”

“I think we missed the ceremonies,” Roxas squints at a few banners hanging between buildings, scruffing a hand through his hair. His fingers come away dirty. He grimaces. “What day is it?”

“Uh…. I dunno, it’s been, what, six days?” Axel muses, looking at the sky instead of the people who have all stop what they were doing to look at the pair of them, dirty, bloody, with torn clothes and an unconscious mage.

“Seven, actually,” someone says very sweetly, stopping right in front of Axel to jab a hand against his chest. “Hi. Welcome back. I see you were doing very important things on the mountain.”

Roxas rolls his eyes and steps forward to push her hand away. “Hi, Kairi. We killed a dragon and survived a freak blizzard. How was your week?”

“Yeah, we--” she stops short. “Blizzard?!”

“It didn’t hit down here?” Axel asks, swaying back on his heels, “really? Well, she wasn’t as powerful as we thought.”

“You found the source of the power?” Namine asks, her hand gently slipping onto Kairi’s shoulder.

“Oh yeah,” Axel hefts Lilianna again, “it’s her. She made all the beasts go insane.”

“Trying-to-kill-us insane,” Roxas glares at the woman’s prone form.

Kairi cocks her head. “So that’s why you smell like a dragon ate you and vomited you back up?”

It’s only because she’s technically still his instructor that Roxas doesn’t ask Axel to light her head on fire again. “Shut up and take her. We need to bathe.”

Pursing her lips, Kairi studies them. Her eyes widen fractionally when she looks at her brother, and she glances furtively at Namine, trying not to smile. “Fine. For now. We need to talk about Axel’s gems.”

Exhaustion keeps Axel from feeling embarrassed. He slides Liliana off his shoulder; it’s a lucky thing she’s so light. He shifts her over for Roxas to hold. “We did have to kill a dragon, Kai. That’s a bit more than we could do on our own.”

Once Liliana is secure with Roxas, Axel lurches forward and wraps Kairi in a hug. Kairi squeezes him back, pressing her face into his shoulder. “You smell like shit. I’m so glad you’re safe. Nami said you’d be fine, but--”

“We can handle a dragon or two,” he murmurs, holding her tightly. He drops his voice so only she can hear, “and no teasing about the jewels, please. I don’t think it’ll last long.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Kairi mutters against his shirt, but nods and pulls back with a bright grin. “Alright. So where are we taking your friend?”

“She made every beast on the mountain go feral, tried to tame a dragon, and caused a blizzard in the middle of summer. Some kind of containment and remedial course in proper use of magic might be good first steps,” Axel squeezes her arm before turning to Namine, “we can take her wherever you see fit.”

Namine nods, clasping her hands in front of herself. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll need your full report once you’re recovered a little.”

Roxas groans. “Right, right. I have the notes half-written, Ax has the rest. Then I want an explanation and my graduation certificate. Baths.” He hefts Liliana’s prone form with ease, propping her up so Kairi can come forward and wrap one arm under her shoulders. As she gets closer, she wrinkles her nose.

“That’s a great idea,” she says, and shrugs at the dirty looks they give her. “You all smell. Alright! You get clean, deal with the report later, and then we are going to have a talk,” she aims a look at Axel over Liliana’s drooping head, then at Roxas. He averts his eyes.

“Can’t we focus on the fact that we beat a dragon?” Axel groans, clapping a hand on Roxas’ shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go get away from these two.”

Roxas’ face lights up. “Kairi, graduation happened, right?”

“That’s Professor to you,” Kairi laughs. “But yeah, most everyone’s gone by now. Why--”

“We’re stealing the upperclass baths,” he interrupts and yanks on Axel’s wrist to drag him away before she can stay anything. 

“The mage’s name is Liliana,” Axel calls back to them, stumbling after Roxas. His cheeks are flushed and he knows that this will just be fodder for Kairi’s teasing later on.

“Bath,” Roxas repeats when they’re far enough away. There’s something fervent about the way he tugs Axel between the buildings, following a path he knows like the back of his hand. The upperclass baths turn out to be in a little wooden house on the edge of the campus, almost in the Training Wood. Roxas has to tug a key from a chain around his neck to let them in. 

The whole place smells of cedar and soap and herbs. He flips around to look at Axel when they’re inside, tilting his head. “Have you ever been here?”

“...no,” Axel glances around, letting his pack drop to the ground. “But now I’m wondering why.”

“You guys don’t need it as much,” Roxas shrugs off his own pack and shimmies quickly out of his armor, setting it gently on sturdy shelves built for the purpose. “But there’s really strong soap for-- well, for wyrm blood and stuff.”

“I need that today,” Axel smiles weakly, peeling off his own clothes. He tries to ignore the fact that he’s here with Roxas. Kairi will have a field day, but soon they’ll break the bond and she’ll have to eat her words. Roxas strips as fast as possible, dumping his clothes in a pile on the floor with a long sigh. 

“I can’t believe we missed graduation. Sora’s gonna be mad.”

“He came all the way back to see you?” Axel asks, carefully only looking at Roxas’ face. 

Roxas ducks his head to hide his smile. “He said he was gonna. I didn’t think… It’s not a huge deal.”

“He’s your brother. If Kai wasn’t here…” Axel shrugs and hefts himself up over the edge of the bath. He sighs as he sinks down into the water. “This feels so great.”

“It’s perfect when you’ve been in Combat and Defense all day,” Roxas agrees, slipping quietly into the water beside him. He’s keeping his gaze on the opposite wall, lined with shelves holding soap and rough bits of stone for scrubbing. “I wonder… what’s gonna happen to the mage? Liliana.”

“Hopefully what I suggested. It’s not like she’s bad at what she does, she just… well, wanted to do things she wasn’t ready for,” Axel sinks lower in the water, letting himself look over at Roxas. “Really, she’s pretty impressive. I can’t make a blizzard.”

“You’re not a weather mage,” Roxas reminds him with a tiny smile, “I bet if you had to make a drought you could manage it in a few years. You… got strong, when I wasn’t looking.”

“Uh--” Axel stares at him for a minute. “Thanks? You did too. We really do make a good team.”

Roxas glances at him with a frown. “Is that surprising?” 

“No,” Axel says softly and sinks down so even his chin is in the water, his hair floating around him. “It’s just that… you want to bond with someone you love, who you’re committing to. So I dunno if it’s a good idea if we stay bonded much longer.”

Roxas coughs. “You-- you remembered that.”

“Of course I remember that,” Axel looks determinedly at the steam rising off of the water. Roxas is staring at him, his gaze heavy on the side of Axel’s head. The water’s gone still around him, rippling only in time with his breath.

“I didn’t think you would,” he says, soft. “I mean. It’s old-fashioned, right? Wanting that.”

“No, it’s not,” he sighs, letting his head fall back to soak his hair. “I want that too. Eventually. But I’m afraid--” Axel closes his eyes, sucking in a breath. The words finally find their way past his lips: “I’m afraid that I’ll fall for you again, and it’ll be just like last time. And if we’re bonded--”

Roxas freezes. “Again?” His breath stutters in his throat. “When-- you were-- there was a first time?”

“Well, yeah,” Axel’s eyes flick to him, then away again. The water is too hot. Roxas’ sun-dark skin is pink where it laps against him. “When you were with Isa. I couldn’t-- that’s why I did all that stuff.”

Roxas gapes at him. “You can’t just say that like I knew about it! How long?”

Axel takes a deep breath before he says slowly, “the whole time. At least in first year. I guess I thought you knew. I don’t know why.”

Roxas is very aware, suddenly, that they’re in the baths with steam curling around them (like in the lake, with Axel’s hand curled into his.) 

Ears burning, he sinks a little lower into the water. A spray of freckles disappears down Axel’s arm and below the water. Roxas swallows and says, unsteadily, “Well, I didn’t. I had no idea.”

“Now you do. And that’s why I think this is a bad idea. You should have what you want, and I don’t think I can deal with being that close to you.” Axel keeps his eyes on the water, not wanting to know what he’ll see in Roxas’ expression.

“You can’t make that decision for me,” Roxas’ voice is odd, a little softer than usual. He’s staring at Axel with large, dark eyes. “D’you know why I went after Isa?”

“...no,” Axel looks furtively up at him, “I thought-- no. Tell me, if you want.”

Swallowing, Roxas closes his eyes. “I was… I thought it was a crush. But it wasn’t. It just got worse and worse until I could barely even function. I thought, if I tried to be with someone else, maybe I’d… and he was the first one who was even a little interested in me.”

“So neither of us are very good at dealing with emotions, huh?” Axel tries to smile even though the knot in his gut pulls tighter.

Laughing darkly, Roxas ducks down into the water for a second, staring at him over the edge. “Made it hard to be in the same classes as you. When we paired up in physical combat-- I thought I was gonna die.”

“Wait--” Axel goes still, his breath catching. “Seriously? Me?” 

Roxas swallows. “You didn’t get that.”

“Not in the slightest,” Axel stares at him. It takes him a moment for his mind to process that, and what it comes up with is a weak laugh, “Gods, I-- I’m stupid. Then--” he sways back in the water. “What does that mean now?”

“Uh--” Roxas almost says something, then snaps his mouth shut again, shaking his head. “You said something about… love. Again.”

Axel’s lips part, a deep flush creeping over his cheeks, “I mean-- yeah. That. If we’re telling the truth.”

“After that week? We almost got eaten. And you punched me. But it was-- after that, it was nice. I missed you. Every time I tried to talk to you about it, you ignored me or I chickened because I was afraid of the answer I’d get.”

“It-- it was so petty,” Axel admits, clenching his hands on his thighs. “Everything-- I didn’t react well, and there was no way to explain it without, well, saying that I felt… y’know.”

Roxas moves a bit closer, sending tiny waves through the water. “The point of that was-- maybe bonding doesn’t have to be like… getting married, or something. We do make a pretty good team.”

“Yeah? You’re okay with that?” Axel murmurs, holds out a hand for him. His leaves his palm open for Roxas to decide. “I’d really like that-- and maybe see… what happens.”

“It’s not like I have any other plans after graduation,” Roxas bites at the corner of his mouth. Axel’s hand is pink from the heat of the water. He reaches out and curls their fingers together. “You wanna stick together? Maybe not fight anymore dragons?”

“Okay,” Axel breathes through a smile. “And--” he pauses, watching Roxas for a second before he continues quietly, “can I kiss you?”

“Now?” Roxas asks, startled, which probably isn’t the best reaction. He realizes that a second later and instead yanks Axel closer, eyes wide. “I mean. Yeah. Yes.”

“Okay,” Axel moves a little closer, too aware of the fact that they’re naked and nearly pressed against each other. Excitement thrums through him, breath lost when he lets himself look at Roxas. The soft light filtering through the bath window is pale on Roxas’ face, his eyes bright and focused completely on Axel. He feels like a first year again, but this time Roxas said yes. 

His fingers slip under Roxas’ chin, thumb brushing his jaw. His lips part, letting out a soft breath before they drop to Roxas’. Roxas sucks in a sharp breath as Axel’s lips brush over his-- it’s bare and thin and it ricochets through him like a shot. He jerks back, then presses hard up onto his toes to shove their mouths together instead, hanging onto Axel like he’s going to back away. Axel gasps against his lips, his fingers sliding back behind his neck. They’re so close. Roxas’ bare skin is nearly touching his.

“I should’ve,” Roxas gasps against his mouth, then presses up again because they’re so close and he’s on fire, “I should’ve done that forever ago. Shouldn’t’ve been afraid.”

Axel kisses him again, his fingers curling in Roxas’ hair. Their lips crush together messily and Axel’s arm wraps around his waist, too tight but he doesn’t have enough sense to speak beyond a low moan that vibrates through him. Gasping, Roxas presses a little closer until their bellies are flush and he can feel Axel against him. 

Axel’s stomach drops. It feels like all of the air was sucked out of the room and he’s left reeling. He pushes Roxas away from him with a ragged gasp, his eyes popping open. “Shit. Roxas--”

Roxas stumbles back, water splashing up around him as he catches himself on the wall. Hurt flashes over his face, unguarded. “What?”

“I have a-- how did I forget?” Axel holds out his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry. I-- Demyx. I have to break up with him. Before.”

“Oh,” Roxas mumbles, clearly not understanding. He stares at Axel for a few more seconds. His face is still red and his hair clings to his cheeks, curling at the ends from the steam.

Then comprehension dawns. “Oh. Demyx.”

“Yeah,” Axel runs his hands back through his hair. “I’m horrible-- god. I forgot I have a boyfriend.”

Frowning, Roxas wades closer and tugs his arms away from his face. He wants to be selfish and tell Axel do it, come with him instead, work on bridging this stupid gap they built themselves.

But Demyx is a nice guy. “You’re not horrible,” he tells Axel anyway. “Is that what… you want to do?”

Axel grips his hands to steady himself. “I--” His eyes flick over Roxas’ face. Roxas offers him a reassuring smile and pushes up onto his toes, tugging Axel down to press a kiss to his cheek. It takes a lot of self control not to nudge his mouth over a bit and just start kissing Axel again, but the memory of Demyx sprawled out in Axel’s sheets only a week ago stills him. “Yeah. I do. If… you’re alright with this-- with, y’know,” he winces at how that sounds, carefully letting go of Roxas’ hands.

“Go talk to him. I’m sure-- he’s a cool guy.”

“Yeah,” Axel lingers there for a second before he squeezes Roxas’ arm and turns around to heft himself out of the bath. “I’m sorry. I’ll… meet you later, okay?”

Roxas bites his lip, averting his eyes as Axel climbs out of the water, still very bare and dripping. “Good luck.” 

“Thanks,” Axel mutters and grabs a towel from the basket. He tries to ignore Roxas behind him, his gut clutching into an uncomfortable knot. This conversation isn’t going to be pretty. He and Demyx were never very serious, but they’d been fooling around since the winter. He pulls on his grimy clothes again before ducking out of the door with only a quick glance back at Roxas. His eyes are fixed on Axel, blonde hair dark from the water, lips still parted and wet. 

Axel shuts the door quietly behind himself.

It feels like a lifetime ago since he’d been on this campus. The mages’ dorm is too quiet, most of the students gone for the summer, the graduates already off to seek their destinies. 

His room is as he left it, bed neatly made (Demyx never makes the bed. He only wonders about that for a second). He drops his clothes in a pile on the floor and promises to burn them once this is over. His fresh clothes are much nicer and he only now realizes how terrible he smelled. And yet Roxas still kissed him.

He has to pause in the middle of changing, one arm through his shirt. Roxas kissed him. Roxas. He feels like a teenager with a first crush. Holding him had felt so wonderful, Roxas’ small, toned body, his soft, damp hair, and the kiss-- it was like his first kiss all over again. His heart thrummed and he felt giddy.

“Dammit,” he groans and pulls his shirt the rest of the way over his head.

The only way to get that kiss again is to talk to Demyx. He leaves all of his things in his room and walks the few yards to Zexion’s room. He knocks on the door, stepping back to tuck his hands in his pockets.

There’s a small quiet shuffling inside and the soft chatter of voices before Zexion tugs open the door and blinks at him from behind the glasses he only ever wears when he’s studying. He still has a year left unlike the rest of them because he’d elected to stay here and do research. Axel can’t understand the compulsion. His jewels shimmer bright blue-green from beneath the fall of hair. “Axel. So the mountain didn’t kill you.”

“Nah, something like that couldn’t kill me. But we did find a weather mage who can make blizzards. You might want to go talk to her once Namine calms her down a bit. Um…” Axel glances behind him, shifting his weight between his feet. “Is Demyx here?”

“Really,” Zexion murmurs, interest flashing brief over his face before Axel’s second question registers. 

Then, oddly, his cheeks flush pink and he glances back behind him. “Yes, actually.” He tugs the door open wide enough to let Axel in, stepping back to gesture him inside.

“Oh,” Axel nods but doesn’t move inside, “actually-- hey Dem.”

Demyx looks up from Zexion’s desk. He sits frozen for a second before he breaks out into a bright grin. “Hey! You’re back!”

He’s on his feet and skips over to them, his eyes slipping between the two of them before he stops on Axel. “And you’re bonded. Wow! With Roxas?”

“Uh-- yeah. With Roxas,” Axel’s heart is stuck in his throat but he smiles at Demyx. “I am. Could I talk to you alone, please?”

“Um…” Nervousness flashes through Demyx’s eyes. He glances at Zexion. “Sure. There’s not really anyone left. So… see you in a bit, Zex?”

Zexion stares at him, searching with dark unreadable eyes, then turns the same look on Axel. It pierces right through him. 

Then he dips his head in a graceful nod and steps back. “Of course. I’ll be right here.”

Demyx moves slightly toward Zexion but stops mid-motion with a timid laugh. “Okay! More studying, right?”

He shakes his head and follows Axel out. 

They walk in silence for a few moments, Axel glancing at him as he says, “sorry I was gone so long. Didn’t mean to be.”

“Was that true? About the weather mage?” Demyx asks after a pause, walking a next to Axel. Usually, he’d be pressed up against Axel’s side or at least holding his hand. Maybe he can tell. The guilt in Axel’s gut clenches tighter.

“Yeah. She caused a ton of trouble for us. Feral animals, blizzards, dragons…” Axel shrugs a shoulder.

“Dragons?!” Demyx repeats, spinning around to face him without missing a step.

“Oh yeah,” Axel laughs. “Well, one. One dragon. We had to kill it, uh-- Roxas and me.”

“Whoa. That’s awesome,” Grinning, Demyx finally reaches out to set a hand lightly on his arm. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” Axel murmurs, then stops. They’re far enough away from Zexion’s room and he can’t hear anyone else around them. “Um, Dem--” he takes a deep breath, looking down at around Demyx’s navel. When will he learn how to talk about this kind of stuff.

“Ax..?” Demyx asks, taking a small step back. “Are you okay?”

Axel smiles ruefully. “Not really. You know… the bonding thing?” He rubs the stone on his wrist, “I think it’s more than just for the power, y’know? Roxas and I want to travel together. So I dunno… if we can still be together.”

“Oh,” Demyx blinks at him. He shifts on his feet and bites his lip. After a moment, he laughs softly. “That’s okay. Really,” he reaches for Axel’s hands, sliding his fingers through Axel’s. “Zexion and I… kinda realized a similar thing. We’re staying here for another year, and you’re gonna go off on an adventure, so it’s okay if you want to go with Roxas if it’s okay that I want to stay here with Zexion.”

“Really?” Axel looks sharply up at him, “you and Zexion, are you..?”

“Well-- kind of! You were gone and we were talking and it made sense,” he shrugs a shoulder sheepishly. “I’m happy that you finally bonded. I know you really wanted to.”

“Yeah… thanks,” Axel watches him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “So if I hadn’t broken up with you, you woulda with me, huh?”

“Yep,” Demyx bobs his head apologetically. “I knew you were leaving anyway. It made sense.”

Axel squeezes his hand, “I’ll miss you, Dem.”

“Me too,” Demyx smiles softly and leans in to kiss his cheek. He lingers for a moment before he drops their locked hands and waves them at Axel. “Now go! You haven’t even really graduated yet!”

“Nope,” Axel laughs, “too busy stopping a weather mage from causing destruction.”

“That’s a bit more noble,” Demyx winks at him and takes a few steps back. “Say ‘bye before you head out of your journey, kay?”

“‘Course,” Axel salutes him, bringing his feet in and his back straight like the soldiers do. Laughing, Demyx salutes lazily back and turns down the hallway to jog back to Zexion’s room. After a moment Axel walks the other way.

The sun is beginning to set and the campus is more silent than he’s ever heard when Axel walks to Roxas’ dorm. Even when he stayed late with Kairi, he was always around people: those working over the summer, the faculty who lived on the campus year-round. On the soldier’s half of campus, all he can hear is the breeze brushing past his finally-clean hair. It’s refreshing after the chaos of the mountain. Any other day Axel would stay in the courtyard enjoying the quiet, possibly practicing where no one can gawk at his fire or run screaming (you’d think that soldiers would be used to it by now, but some are still very superstitious).

Instead, he pushes his way into Roxas’ dorm. At least, he hopes this is his dorm. There are a few barracks for soldiers, but Roxas is a fourth year. Generally they don’t live in the barracks, unless they’re like Demyx and can’t really afford anything else.

He strolls through two different buildings before finding one with the door cracked open, right near the entrance. Axel peeks in and he can’t help but smile. Roxas is sprawled half-clothed on his bed, his dirty things tossed in a haphazard pile near the door. Axel steps softly into the room and sits down on the edge of his bed. Roxas’ hair is soft under his touch, his face peaceful in sleep. He stirs a little as Axel’s fingers slide through his hair, blinking open sleep-hazed blue eyes. For a second he stares at Axel, uncomprehending, and shifts a little toward him on the bed. 

“Ax…?”

“Hey,” Axel says softly, smiling down at him. His fingers trail down Roxas’ cheek before he lets them drop to the bed. “Sorry. You should keep sleeping.” 

Shaking his head, Roxas shoves himself onto his elbows, yawning as he wakes up. “How’d it go? You okay?”

“Yeah, he was surprisingly alright with it. Though it could be because he and Zexion seem to have, um…” he shrugs a shoulder and moves a little closer to Roxas.

A slow grin breaks out over Roxas’ face. “Done the same thing?”

Axel nods. Roxas’ hair is mussed but his eyes are alert and focused on Axel. “He said I was leaving anyway. It makes sense.” Biting down on a wider grin, Roxas shoves himself up fully, hovering next to Axel for a moment.

“So it’s all good.”

“It’s all good,” Axel responds, a smile creeping back onto his lips.

The sun slants through Roxas’ tiny window, pressing a lazy square into his rumpled sheets and the edge of his cheek. “D’you have anything else to do?”

“Let Kairi yell at me,” Axel says lightly. He watches Roxas, completely captivated. “She’s never gonna let me live this down.”

“Me either,” Roxas grimaces. He hesitates a second, then leans up to push a soft kiss to Axel’s mouth. “We should talk about-- graduation, and what we wanna do, and… but I kind of just… want to go back to sleep. You could stay, if you wanted.”

“I’d love to,” Axel murmurs, staying close so he can kiss the corner of his mouth.

Roxas wastes no time in falling back down, tugging on Axel’s arm in invitation to follow. They spent the week cheating death on a mission that shouldn’t have been so hard, thwarted an idiot mage doing idiot things, killed a feral dragon, overcame approximately two and a half years of blind idiocy on both of their parts, and pitched themselves headfirst into shaky new territory that leaves his entire body feeling like air. 

Roxas figures they deserve a quick nap before real life starts back up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> Happy 8/13/15!

**Author's Note:**

> This is lovingly based on Megan Derr's fantastic [Jewel Bonds series](http://www.lessthanthreepress.com/books/index.php?main_page=index&typefilter=bookx&bookx_series_id=10), which is lovely and worth a read. 
> 
> Happy AkuRoku day, y'all. There may be porn to come later.


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